IMDBsynopsis of "A Working Man":
Levon Cade left his profession behind to work construction and be a good dad to his daughter. But when a local girl vanishes, he's asked to return to the skills that made him a mythic figure in the shadowy world of counter-terrorism.
Chuck Dixon is a comic book writer who isbest known for his legendary run on Batman at DC Comics, where he co-created the iconic villain Bane alongside Graham Nolan. His other notable works span a wide range of genres, including The Punisher for Marvel, Conan the Barbarian, Nightwing, The Simpsons, and SpongeBob SquarePants. Here is the Novelpro Junkie's interview with Chuck Dixon:
Chuck has written thousands of issues, contributing over 40,000 pages of comics to the industry. One of his most significant achievements is adapting J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit into a very successful graphic novel, which became one of his entries on the New York Times bestseller list. He is also the author of the bestselling SEAL Team 6 novels published by Dynamite.
Currently, Chuck is working on several exciting projects, including the Bad Times and Levon Cade series for Bruno Books. Additionally, Chuck continues to produce comic scripts for Splatto Comics and the forthcoming ARKtoons digital comics platform.
1. What inspired you to write “Levon’s Trade”?I wrote a lot of Punisher, Batman, and things like that. I'm a comic book scripter. I've scripted thousands of comics and I've always been attracted to that sort of vigilante character, the guy who works outside the law to bring justice the way he sees fit. When I stopped writing “The Punisher”, I hadn't written The Punisher for a few years, but I missed writing Frank Castle. So, I created a character of my own, sort of in that same genre, but I made a lot of changes to it. So, Levon Cade is very much a different person from Frank Castle.
2. Before choosing the title “Levon’s Trade” were there other titles you were considering?
If so, what were they?
No, I came up with his name, Levon Cade, and then I thought, “Well, I want to write a series of these. And I wanted something in the title that would let readers know this is part of a series”. And I thought, “Well, Levon relies on all of the things he learned in the military. And basically those skills are what he does, that's his job.” So, the title, “Levon's Trade” seemed to just pop up. 3. I guess it was a few months, like maybe three months, because I was doing other comic work at the time. So, I didn't work on it from beginning to end. I worked on it and then kept coming back to it until I was done. It's generally how I write. I got a number of projects and I balance my prose novels with my comic projects. But it was about three months.
What was your writing schedule: I think I'm like most writers, I get up in the morning, exercise (well, I don’t know about the exercise for most writers), eat breakfast. Then I kind of get off to a slow start, sort of rev up. Then I'm really going in the afternoon and putting in a solid three hours, four hours of actually putting words down using the keyboard. But it takes a little while for me to spin up. I can't just wake up and start writing.
4.When you wrote the novel, did you map out the plots ahead of time or did it come to you while you wrote the story? The way I write, everybody writes differently, I come up with the big scenes. The scenes I know I want to get to and then figure out how to get the character there. I don't do a lot of outlining. I kind of let the novel find its own voice, find its own tone. As long as I know those big scenes that I want to work toward those big scenes, I just sort of work it out by trial and error. I do a lot of rewriting, which I actually enjoy more than writing.
5. Which of the “Levon Cade” book series was the easiest to write?
Probably the first three books were pretty easy to write because I'm still exploring the character. I've still got a lot of things to inform the reader about and they just seemed to flow. Then the challenge after that was coming up with different kinds of stories because I didn't want to tell the same story every time. For all of you who've read the Levon Cade novels, you're already aware that I do war stories, I do prison stories, a heist story, a die-hard type story, chase story. I try to change it up so there's no formula. Because I like to bring readers what they expect, but not in the way they expect. 6.
I had done some work with Sylvester Stallone, both in video games and comics. We got along really well. We were kind of on the same page on what makes a good action story. Obviously, Sylvester Stallone knows how to make an action story. So, I sent him a number of the books I'd written and he really liked Levon Cade. From the very beginning, he wanted to make it either into a feature film or a TV series for streaming. So, like all film projects, it sort of crept along until all the pieces came together. Serendipitously Jason Statham was actively looking for a new franchise. So, he and Sly know one another very well and Sly suggested Levon Cade and they made a movie.
7. Were you ever on set? If so, could you talk about your memorable moment? People say, "Well, didn't they want the writer on set?" I said, I had two Academy Award winning screenwriters working on this movie, so I don't think they needed me around. I wrote a book, they're making a movie. I don't want to get in the way. 8.
You know, in the books, Levon Cade is from Alabama. Obviously, Jason Statham is not. I didn't care about that because it's Jason Statham. He's a tremendous action star. The physicality, all of that is believable. He's authentic. He can also act. He can bring the heart to the ball. And, moviegoers love this guy. He's got a fantastic track record. So, I knew with him in the lead, the film is going to be successful. Levon is kind of a universal character. It really didn't matter that they changed his nationality. 9.
No, I really didn't want to, that would be embarrassing. I probably could have, but I didn't make any requests. Would you, if they're going to make sequels? Yeah, they are definitely going to make sequels. They're already kind of worked up about how popular the movie is. It's going viral. The trailer went viral in a big way. And Jason says he really wants to play the character again. So, you know, we're lined up for at least two sequels. So, maybe I'd consider it. But I'd probably back out in the end. Cameos like that tend to stick out even if the viewer isn't aware of who "that guy" is.
10. Writing comic books or novels, which one is more challenging for you?
Oh, novels. Comics are in my DNA. I've wanted to write comics since before I could read. So, I used to draw my own comic books since kindergarten. So, I just love comics. I love the medium. So they're just kind of in my DNA. They're just really easy to write. Prose is a lot more challenging. I had to teach myself how to write a novel. And of course, I've read lots of novels, but reading and writing, two different parts of the brain. So I had to teach myself how to do it. 11.
I enjoy it [novels], but it's harder. It's more challenging and it takes longer. I can write a comic script in a couple of days. A novel takes weeks and weeks.
Professionally: I wrote a comic called Evangeline for a company called Comico, and that was like 1984, maybe a little earlier than that. That was my first paying writing gig on comics.Childhood: I used to draw a character I called Melvin Mudball. It was really, really simple, very much inspired by Don Martin, the guy from Mad Magazine.Melvin could be anything, spaceman or a soldier or whatever I needed him to be. I basically created the easiest character I could think of to draw so that I could keep him consistent. I drew tons and tons of stories and drawings while I should have been doing schoolwork. 12. I'll tell you the power I'd love to have is Wolverine's, because he can open packages easily. We all get packages from Amazon. We're all like trying to struggle for scissors. It'd be really neat to just go snick and open that package. Cellophane would no longer be a challenge.
Yeah, I don't know what, I don't know what my superhero name is, I've never thought of that.
