Wesley Snipes is an actor who has become a household name over the years, after playing the titular super-powered anti-hero in the Blade Trilogy and starring in White Men Can't Jump, Demolition Man, and many other popular movies.
The actor has now turned his attention to comic books, and has been working on The Exiled for some time with Gifted Rebels publishing, which is owned and run by writer Adam Lawson.
Lawson has spoken with us about several very graphic comics he brought to life, including The Kill Journal, The Eighth, and Kids and Monsters, so the nature of The Exiled seems to fit perfectly for the label.
Below, you can see the Kickstarter video which includes an interview with Wesley Snipes as he explains what this story means to him. Although the goal was surpassed in the first hour, it is still gaining funding as the month goes on.
When we discovered that Adam was working on a new project, we had to bring him back for a fourth chat, this time about The Exiled. Considering we learned about the last three books straight from the source, having Wesley Snipes involved just makes things all the more exciting.
Lawson chatted with us about meeting Wes and how the collaboration came about. He also explained why Snipes seeing the character through the eyes of an actor helped elevate Roach to another level altogether.
He also talked to us about why Wesley compared The Exiled to Seven and Blade Runner, or rather, a mix of the two. We've included our audio chat, transcript, imagery, and the full video interview with Adam below.
Adam Lawson: The way it works is that the crediting goes the story by Wes, Keith, myself, and then script and letters by me. So the three of us had all talked through the story, developed the character, fleshed out the world, etc. from a broad picture standpoint.
Wes brought a lot of inspiration for the character and who is Roach? Because he thinks about things through the eyes of an actor, so he's thinking about what it would feel like to be this person, which brings a lot of depth, so that's really cool. And then Keith and I had been working on the story for years before we had our first meeting with Wes. We were like, hey, wanna do a comic book? Because Keith and Wes had known each other from Demolition Man days.
And we were at a place where we're like, hey, what about this story? And Wes was like, I like it, but can we add this, this, and this? So that was our jumping-off point, and then, with the three of us together, we took it to a new height. And as that's what you're seeing now - this is a creative collaboration between the three of us.
And then that's when I started penning the dialogue and the panels, and I letter my books as well. I letter them and then do all of the sound effects I hand draw and try to make it as authentic and as much of me inscribed in the pages as possible.
So that's kind of how the relationship works between us. I think it's a really great collaboration. I think that collaborating on pages is really tough - two people writing the same thing, I don't know if that works very well. But this way, we get to work as a team, I can send things in and get feedback, and we work all together. It's really great.
I think Wes hit it perfectly on the head in the Kickstarter video; he nailed it. In the sense that it's like Seven because we have a detective chasing a serial killer involved in a complex array of murders that seem to be put together and have clues tied into them.
And then Blade Runner because there's this science fiction element to the story and the big reveal in the pursuit of this serial killer sort of flips the whole world on its head. It's a whole world paradigm shift in our twist. So, I think those are perfect examples that Wes gave.
What do you guys think of The Exiled based on what you've seen and read? Do you think you'll be backing this one or waiting until it hits shelves?
Make sure to let us know your take in the comments, and be sure to watch the full video interview with Adam Lawson below!
The Exiled is currently on Kickstarter and will launch in 2023.