[Interview] Hoverboy’s Marcus Moore and Ty Templeton

Posted by Graig on August 15, 2008

Hoverboy Bi-Annual Cover

A little over a month ago, I popped open an email received from Marcus Moore through our contact from over at Rack Raids, stating boldly, “After 25 years, Hoverboy is returning to comics thanks to Ty Templeton and Mr. Comics. I’d like to submit the first issue for review.”

Huh? Hoverboy. Who the heck is Hoverboy, I thought to myself. I copied and pasted the name into the Google search bar and immediately came across the Hoverboy website (which has changed greatly in the time since) where there was a blog-like front page detailing all the great goings on at Hoverboy central, with entries dating back a few years. Man, this comic really was many years in the making, but still, how come I’ve never heard of Hoverboy, I thought, and began to troll through the site, starting first at the history pages, which seemed to breathe authenticity, except that there was something’s just not right about it all.

It was a solid 20 minutes before I clued in on the joke, that the website was a farce, unfolding a near-70-year history - through animated shorts, a live-action documentary, photographs of manufactured paraphernalia, scans of doctored old pulp magazines and comic book covers and more - of comic-book character whose publishing history, at this stage, spans only a few weeks. I received a digital copy of the final comic book product after letting Moore know I was interested. The book was half superhero spoof and half pop-culture satire, and utterly ingenious. I gave the book a rare 5 Viking review and had to know more about this project, which seemed, obviously, more than just a comic book. So I went to the source.

After a flurry of last-minute coordinating emails, I found myself chatting with Moore in his car on the way to a music studio in Scarborough (a Toronto suburb).  While we negotiated police detours and city buses, multi-talented comic book creator Ty Templeton Batman and Robin Adventures, Simpsons Comics>, Bigg Time) and singer/songwriter Glenn Reid were putting together the “Hoverboy Theme Song” in the studio.

“We’re in a huge expansion-growth mode right now,” said Moore. “For a long time I was working on Hoverboy basically on my lonesome. I think if I was a better self-promoter I might have come along a lot further a lot faster. But because I was working a corporate job during the day, and having my head down, making my money, well, that’s the danger of a steady paycheck is you’re not hungry.”

It was at a release party for the Robocop: Prime Directives TV mini-series where Moore was first introduced to Templeton, and where Templeton was first introduced to Hoverboy. A few years later, when Templeton was brought on as the Editor In Chief of Mr. Comics (best known for the recent Planet of the Apes mini-series) he was looking for properties, and approached Moore about making a comic book out of not just the character but his reality-bending concept. Then, through Templeton, Canadian TV icon Rick Green (The Red Green Show / Prisoners of Gravity) became involved and now Hoverboy is being shopped around as a TV series.

But Hoverboy wasn’t just concept when the comic book started coming together. Moore had originated the character in his waning high-school years, the concept not fully solidified but certainly a seed that refused to go undeveloped.

“I did a live action [film] during my years at Ryerson,” Moore said, with slight embarrassed giggle upon bringing it up, “very cheaply done. It’s the kind of thing you don’t want anyone else to see because it’s pretty lame [laughs]. But it started way back, and it’s something I always clung onto, it was something I was always drawing in class at film school, and then once I went out into the work force, I dropped it for a couple years until I started going nuts doing corporate video, and decided to resurrect it to try and do an animated short film.”

The film, Robot Rampage, - which can be viewed on the Hoverboy website - marked Hoverboy’s debut in 2000. Moore developed the cartoon for the National Film Board of Canada (”NFB”), resulting in a smoothly animated homage/spoof of the 1960’s Spider-man, Rocket Robin Hood and Hercules style of animation and storytelling, hilariously riddled with absurd action and dialogue, utilizing era-specific, politically-driven stereotypes of the Red Menace and cartoon mad scientists as “villains”.

“[Robot Rampage] was done to keep myself sane doing corporate work ten hours a day. I did that basically myself… I had a couple of producer friends, Brad Abraham and Joseph O’Brien, who kept cracking the whip on me and got me the NFB money. But it’s sort of funny, for 12 minutes of animation - well, animation quote/unquote - I did it mostly on my own with a friend, Bob Orlic, helping me out on backgrounds, and it took me a year and a half to do.

“Nearly every dime of that [NFB] money went to the music because I realized how important that was to setting the mood and everything, and I didn’t want to use stock. So there I am in a Hamilton church with a 30-piece orchestra doing music for this thing. You hear guys like Spielberg and Lucas talk about it all the time, but that’s it, you just sit back and go ‘this is cool’ [laughs]. Especially when you’ve been working on something and it’s just you beating your head against the wall and you lose all perspective on something. That’s the great thing about having Ty and Rick [Green] on board now is that they’re so full of energy for it that it boggles my mind.”

Moore’s obviously proud of his earlier animated work, but there’s some distance in his voice as he talks about it. Things have started to move so far beyond what Hoverboy was, now with Templeton and Green aboard, but Moore admits it’s only gotten better.

“We’re basically in a partnership at this point to try and get something put forward. Ty is an experienced writer on a lot of fronts, and he brings a lot to the table, not only in terms of history, but also he pumps out however many scripts each year for comic books. And then you have Rick who’s been a part of three or four fairly successful TV shows, and in Canada that’s a very short list. So it’s pretty exciting to be able to bounce ideas off of people, it’s the type of interactivity you want in a scenario like this. Even though I came up with the idea, every Hoverboy idea is made better when eight people have kicked it about the room. I’ll do up a comic book cover and Ty will say ‘you know what, it would take it over the top in terms of believability if you use this font’ and then Rick will say ‘you know what would be really funny is if you put this caption here’ which will be a mixture of off-beat humour and historical fact.  Ultimately, it’s just a much better product. My dream is to have the whole ‘writers’ room’ idea where you’re just throwing ideas around the room, and coming up with the most crazy, but thought provoking ideas you can.”

When we arrive at the studio, we find Templeton and Reid building a bombastic chorus in a sound-proof studio, belting out “HOVERBOY, A-WAY” atop their previously recorded vocals. After a few minutes of the pair finishing up their recordings, hearing snippets of the catchy marching tune along the way, Templeton enters the mixing room and he and Moore are like giddy schoolchildren reuniting. Templeton passes along a mock-up cereal-box image “Hoverboy’s Crispy Fists and Sugar Bucket”, which Templeton then proceeds to explain through giggles how, due to certain issues, the cereal had to be quickly repurposed as “Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s Hoops and Balls”.

The proverbial kid in the candy store, Templeton speaks with unbridled enthusiasm for the Hoverboy project in all the various forms it’s taking on.

Hoverboy - Strange Adventures

“Instantly, the thing that made me laugh the most was the idea that he was a superhero who clearly was going to disappoint, that at some level was going to fuck up in the middle of the story. All the covers promise stories in which he’s not that impressive. His power to hover is - who cares - it’s a useless power. What I loved is the idea that - this is what really attracted me to all the stuff [Moore] had done - even though this character clearly wasn’t succeeding, and had a crappy power, and kids probably didn’t like it, he also was a soup, and a play, and a movie, and a comic book, and a breakfast cereal, and a coffee travel mug sticker… and it made me laugh that so many licensors and so many people  believed in this character enough to spend money to license it. But, it always failed, and that there was never a time when it was going to succeed, but, by God, someone else was going to try and do a Hoverboy product, ‘aw crap I just lost $20,000 on that’. It just killed me that there was so many iterations of it, and I just went “Can I join in, can I do one, can I do Hoverboy ping-pong balls or Hoverboy bowling shoes” because that’s the most fun of it, that there’s so many stupid Hoverboy products that just couldn’t have sold.”

Trolling through the website - or the online Hoverboy museum, as it were - you will currently find over a dozen comic covers inspired by styles from decades past, paraphernalia like the Hoverboy decoder ring and war bonds poster, two animated shorts, and more.  And it continues to grow, not just on-line but out into the world.

“I think the first thing I did was a comic cover,” Templeton said, looking at Moore for confirmation, “and pretty well within two or three weeks of doing this comic cover I thought it would be really cool to make a little documentary about this character… a pop culture movie - I think my favourite movie in the past 25 years was Spinal Tap, and so much I saw this as a comic book version of Spinal Tap - so we talked about it off and on but nothing came of it until I said ‘I wanna make this real, I’m so in love with the idea of Hoverboy that I wanna make it real.’  As the editor in chief of a small comic company I can make this real, I can make a real comic book. Then as we started thinking about doing the comic we started thinking about making a little film to promote the comic and when we made the film, we filmed it with ten to fifteen different people pretending to be fans, one of whom was Glen, one of whom was Rick Green, and when we put the film together we showed it to Rick and Glen and they said ‘We need to do more,’ and Glen said ‘I’ve got to write new songs,’ and Rick said ‘We’ve got to turn this into a television show’, and we were just mostly doing it to promote the <strong>Hoverboy</strong> comic. And that was like the next level, they were the next people to see some different Hoverboy products. But they were like ‘I don’t want to just be over there, I want to be part of it,’ so they jumped in.”

“People who see it just want to do something with it,” Moore offered. “Everyone just seems to want to join in and be part this,” Templeton confirmed.

Both Templeton and Moore tell of Hoverboy’s infectiousness, of attending comic book and sci-fi conventions, talking up their product to friends and fellow comic artists and days, if not hours later, finding submissions and contributions in the form of fake covers or mock ads before them. Even people from the unlikeliest of places, like Rob Goodwin, publisher for NASA Mission Reports, clamour to get involved.

“We were at Polaris [a Toronto sci-fi convention] a couple weeks ago,” Templeton said, “and Rick met this guy who was gaming designer of the year or something and we showed him Hoverboy, and he said ‘I’m going to make you a Hoverboy game, free, I just want to do this.’ So we’ll have that coming up. And we met dozens of people who want to play characters in the documentary.”

A trailer for the documentary can also be found on the Hoverboy website. The most adventurous facet of the ever-growing Hoverboy project to date, Green is shopping doc around as an hour-format TV documentary and perhaps as series pilot, with both Moore and Templeton explaining the various ways in which the concept could extend itself as an ongoing series.  In fact, with obvious vision in mind, Moore refers to Hoverboy as “the show” more often than “the character” or “the book”. 

“It’s such a weird property and concept,” Moore said, “the situation I always find myself running into is people love it, but it’s a difficult sell.”  Part of the solution is to approach the Hoverboy from multiple angles.

Moore still holds out hope for an animated series, taking looking at South Park in admiration for the freedom that creator’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone have achieved in the past decade, while Templeton mentions a spin-off sit-com from the documentary of the feuding families of the Hoverboy creators, or potentially an ongoing mocumentary series. Then Moore shocks Templeton, excitedly explaining his idea for “a series of timeless holiday specials. Stuff that parents will laugh at, getting the inspiration, but kids will think is just neat, like the classic Charlie Brown or Frosty the Snowman shows that air year after year after year.”

But the documentary, more than the comic or the website remains the focus for, though a second issue of the series is in gestation phase. “It’s all part of it,” Templeton said. “The comic, the fake covers, the animated trailer, the song we’re recording, we need all of it for the documentary.”

We were treated to the complete “Hoverboy Theme Song”, a booming, 1940’s army drum corps spoof, full of patriotic ballyhoo and a big, manly, chest-thumping chant, “DOOM, DOOM, DOOM, DOOMYDEEDOOM DOOM DOOM.  HOVERBOY, A-WAY.” There’s gleeful applause as the song closes, some patting of backs and plenty of smiling faces. Templeton makes a few notes about adding explosions to the end and for a minute or two more ideas are lobbied around the room. 

The enthusiasm, creativity and talent behind Hoverboy makes it, in all its facets, fascinating and endlessly entertaining. A property that can go anywhere, the anti-Seinfeld, Hoverboy can be a show, a comic, a website about anything. Though he may never achieve the ranks of Superman as iconoclast, the character and concept have already entered the pop-culture pantheon, both earnestly and meta-textually. More than 8 years on, it’s quite apparent this is still just the beginning for Hoverboy.

[Hoverboy: The Republican Superhero #1 is available now from your local comic book store or online via Mr. Comics. Hoverboy and the touring "Hoverboy Museum" will be at Toronto's Fan Expo August 22 - 24.]

Hoverboy: The Republican Superhero #1

Posted by Graig on July 9, 2008

(Mr. Comics)

In the grand tradition of the Peacemaker, Ma Hunkel: Red Tornado and Forbush-Man comes not just another (bucket-headed) superhero, but the greatest (bucket-headed) superhero of them all: Hoverboy returns! That’s right, don’t call it a comeback (because it’s not), Hoverboy, the greatest Republican hero (take that Stephen Colbert) is back on the scene. After languishing in “publishing limbo” for almost thirty years, Mr. Comics is publishing the “first all-new Hoverboy story in decades”. Sure, the costume has been modernized, but this is still the same classic fighting American (bucket-headed) superhero that your grandpa used to read while socking it to the Ratzis back in dubya dubya two.

Wait. What?
You confused? I’m confused.
Who or what the hell is Hoverboy?

Well, Hoverboy is a cleverly crafted dose of surrealism created by animator/mad genius Marcus Moore. Not only is he a fictional character, but he’s a fiction of a fictional character. No, Hoverboy never actually existed in comics until now, but with just a wink to acknowledge their fakery, Moore and the gang at Mr. Comics have established a nearly-believable 80-year history for the character.

The book opens with a word from Mr. Comics’ Editor-In-Chief, Ty Templeton, detailing his personal “history” with the character, tongue firmly planted in cheek. Following his introduction comes a note from the “Ombudsman of Mr. Comics” explaining that the reprinted material may be racist and offensive but that, like Disney’s Song of the South, it’s a ” ‘product of the times’, which is the phrase that makes it all acceptable in hindsight”.

The main story hits heavily the satire button of far-right Republican values and ideals, as well as playing highly upon the exaggerated perception of the current administration. George Bush’s White House is under attack by a giant Assassi-bot, but it’s Hoverboy to the rescue, shooting first (to the neck) and not even bothering with the questions. After saving the day, President Bush enlists his rescuer in a top-secret mission to find evidence of Al Qaeda in Iran. Despite Hoverboy’s pointing out the improbability of succeeding, he will find that evidence if his President says it’s there. Handed a hand-made map from the President, Hoverboy heads off on his mission. It doesn’t go as planned, and in fact is a huge cock-up, but the story ends with Bush in the clear and a thumbs-up from Hoverboy, with a heart-felt patriotic message.

Written by Ty Templeton, with spot-on likenesses and dynamic illustrations by Steve Molnar (and lush coloring from Bernie Mireault), the main story is a hilarious spoof of the outgoing administration. Though there’s no fresh satire here (the sheer amount of Bush mockery over the past 8 years has left little room for ingenuity), it’s nevertheless told with Colbert-like mock sincerity and sharp wit, looking upon American patriotism as only a Canadian writer could.

What follows the main story, however, is what sells the book. Moore credits himself as the “Curator of the Hoverboy Museum”, and in the book he provides commentary over 20 pages of “historical” material, including eight “classic” Hoverboy covers, a vintage ’50’s PSA for the House of UnAmerican Activities Committee, images of various Hoverboy paraphernalia, a hilarious “Fruit Pie” spoof, a page of “where are they now” profiles of Hoverboy talents past, and the creme de la creme, a 10-page “reproduction” of a WWII-era Hoverboy story.

The “reproduction” is deftly illustrated in the generic art style of the time (though the colors are a smidgen too clean), and is a hilarious send-up of the prejudices that cropped up during war time (”Now, now Miss… it’s not true that Japs eat babies”). It’s presented on the page as a scan of the original printed book, getting a full sense of the yellowing, pulpy paper comics used to be printed on.

The ancillary material is brilliant and obviously painstakingly created, mimicking the appearance of old pulp magazines, Dell-style kids comics, Archie comics, and navigating the various genres popular over the decades from sci-fi, westerns, outrageous Weisinger-esque storylines (Hoverboy in blackface undercover!) and the scandalous. Complete with Moore’s commentary, one actually starts to believe the possibility of Hoverboy’s legacy. To this point, the main story feels like it was printed solely to capture Hoverboy in this modern era, where the worst elements of Republicanism are championed by Fox News (amongst others), excusing xenophobia and adhering to war as hero-maker, drawing parallels (somewhat) to the rather bitter-tasting stories of WWII-era “Japanazi” comics and McCarthy-era at-all-costs paranoia.

If you head over to the Hoverboy website the experience deepens, with era-specific cartoons (including Moore’s hilarious Hoverboy short film from 2000), a documentary, photos, more comic covers and fan club trinkets from the “Hoverboy Museum”. Together with the comic, it’s an ingenious, meticulously crafted, and utterly impressive multi-media project that’s actually succeeds at it’s objective… not just to entertain, but to provide a believable, if satirical, sense of history for the character.

I don’t know if Hoverboy will find himself in a regular series or not, or if he even has legs to support one, but as a concept for humorously exploring pop- (and political) culture past and present, there’s endless potential for entertainment. From “neck full of bullets” to communist zombies (”Com-bies”), Hoverboy: The Republican Superhero doles out a delirious dose of awesome. Recommended.

5 out of 5 Vikings