“Iconic stuff little boys think are awesome”

The webcomic Axe Cop continues to work on two levels: as an over-the-top superhero adventure not unlike the stories of the early 1990s, and as a peek into the psyche of its six-year-old coauthor. Newsarama just ran an interview with brothers Ethan and Malachai Nicolle about their upcoming Axe Cop miniseries:

Ethan: Well, without giving away too much... Bad Guy Earth is the story of two evil Psychic Brothers who create a bad guy machine and want to turn the entire earth into Bad Guy Earth. They have a gun that shoots portals to other times, dimensions and planets too, so they are able to basically make anything they want into a bad guy, including the US military.

Axe Cop is earth's only hope and it is the toughest fight he has ever fought. This is the first story where Malachai has written bad guys from the perspective of a bad guy, so the Bad Guys are about as indestructible as Axe Cop is.

Nrama: Could you tell us about some of the new characters/creatures we'll meet in Bad Guy Earth?

Ethan: There are so many... but most of it is iconic stuff little boys think are awesome. Wrestlers, lions, army men, ghosts, dinosaurs, time travel, trucks, aliens...it's all there. . . .

Nrama: Do you worry your brother will become corrupted by venturing into the psyches of the dark and twisted?

Ethan: Nah, if he delves into dangerous territory I will talk to him about the concepts just as any good big brother should. I won't let him just start gutting an imaginary nun without saying something about it.

He generally has to pretend the bad guys are under a curse and that is why they are doing evil things. He doesn't get why people would want to do evil, so he has to make up reasons. It ends up being a lot less about the reasons and more about whose team he is on. If he is on Team Good, he kills Team Bad and vice versa.

Much more about the brothers’ working methods in the interview. The student-film adaptation of Axe Cop mentioned in the interview seems to be this one. Malachai’s verdict: too much realistic blood.