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Berserker. ISSUE 0, February 2009. FIRST PRINTING. Published by Image Comics, Inc. Ofce of Publication: 2134 Allston Way, Second Floor Berkeley, CA 94704. $2.99 US, $2.99 CAN. 2009 Top Cow Productions,Inc. and DiVide Pictures. BERSERKER. Berserker, the Berserker logos, and the likeness of all featured characters are trademarks of Top Cow Productions, Inc. and DiVide Pictures. All rights reserved. Anyresemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric intent, is coincidental. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,without the express written permission of Top Cow Productions, Inc. PRINTED IN CANADA.

Marc Silvestri - CEOMatt Hawkins - President and COO

Filip Sablik - PublisherRob Levin - VP - Editorial

Mel Caylo - VP - Marketing & SalesChaz Riggs - Graphic DesignPhil Smith - Managing Editor

Alyssa Phung - ControllerAdrian Nicita - Webmaster

Scott Newman - Production LeadJennifer Chow - Production Assistant

For Top Cow Productions, Inc.:

Address correspondence to:fanmail@topcowent.com

Written by Rick Loverd Art by Jeremy Haun

Colors by Dave McCaig Letters by Troy Peteri

Design by Scott Newman Edited by Rob Levin

Produced by Top Cow Productions and DiVide Pictu

Cover A by Dale Keown New York Comic-Con Rage Variant by Dale Keo

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Milo Ventimiglia & Russ Cundiff

For DiVide Pictures:

Milo Ventimiglia Presents :

Rick Loverd would like to thank:

Sarah (my toughest and best critic), my wonderful family, Milo Ventimiglia, RussCundiff, Everyone at Top Cow, Steven Selikoff, Cori Wellins, Clint Trucks, KevinBurke, Danny Roman, Oliver Tatom, Dr. William Crowley Jr., Braden Aftergood, KathLingenfelter, Colin Crowley, and Jason SorvariThanks.

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Mel Caylo, VP of Marketing & Sales at Top Cow, sat down one morning to have a candid and entertaining roundtable conversation with Milo Ventimiglia and Russ Cundiff of DiVide Pictures, creator and writer Rick Loverd, and artist Jeremy Haun.

Mel: Rick, walk us through the conceit of Berserker.How did you come up with this premise?

Rick: Basically it all started when I got really obsessedone a ernoon with shape-shi ers. And, you know,every culture across the world has his or her own littletake on a shape-shi er, whether its a skin-walker or awerewolf, or even a vampire. I stumbled upon theseNorse shape-shi ers, the Berserkers, which translatesto he who wears the skin of the bear. I hadnt really read anything, certainly not recently, that had any kindof conceit around that idea and I thought that would bereally cool if we could update it to present day and tell astory around it.

Mel: Now, Jeremy, when you rst heard this premise,what kind of images ashed through your head, visually?Did you have any design sensibilities already that youwanted to try?

Jeremy: Well, its interesting, when I heard that it wasgoing to be a book called Berserker, I was like: Oh, thatskinda cool, you know, an old school Norse book, andsaw all these images of the guy on the battleeld. enwhen I found out it was going to be a modern story, I stillhad that kind of blood-covered, crazed, on the battleeldsensibility in the back of my head and I think that thatsone thing that Ive really tried to bring over into theimages; trying to make sure that it still has that madnessand while the characters arent necessarily Norse lookingor anything like that, I still wanted it to feel that justpitiless craziness.

Mel: Now, Rick, you had your property, you had yourconceit, what brought you to DiVide, Milo and Russ?

Rick: I really have got to give all the credit to my agent,Steven Selikoff at William Morris, who tracked theseguys down and met up with them. And I got to say thatif you are a young writer; the very, very best thing thatcould happen is Milo Ventimiglia likes something youwrote.

(laughter

)

Rick: DiVide was a game changer, and Russ and Milotook it to Top Cow and the next thing I knew we weregoing.

Mel: Milo, Russ, walk us through your rst meeting withRick. You obviously had read the pitch by this time, butwhat did you guys talk about during your rst meeting?

Milo: Breakfast.

(laughter )

Milo: It was really early in the morning, remember? Youdidnt eat, did you? You showed up because you werecoming from something else.

Russ: It was the day of the writers strike.

Milo: Russ and I had read a TV pilot version of Berserker.Before we even went to the meeting, Russ said to me, ere is no way anybody is ever going to make this, letsgrab it.

(laughter )

Milo: Lets do something with it. So that was just whereit all started. With Rick, were just excited. I mean,anytime we pick up anything, whether its Russ or me,or someone else introduces us to material that has goodwriting, story, dialogue, everything across the board,you want to know those people and you want to be inbusiness with those people.

Russ: Yeah, what he said. (laughs)

Mel: Well, Russ, tell us when you read it and you realizedthat no one was ever going to make this, what was itabout it?

Russ: Well, there really was no beginning and there wasno ending.

(laughter )

Russ: And its just like, wow, this is crazy. All the actionand the violenceIt was very real and something that wehad not read before. We were immediately drawn to it.It was also a fascination with Norse mythology and theunderlying mythology of the series. When I talked to Milo

about itMilos enthusiasm behind the project is really

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contagious. And he was just like: is is awesome! Ithink I remember him running around the office: Yeah,dude! You could be throwing people through walls andshit! ats kind of the excitement that I got, so I said,Alright, lets meet Rick. And Rick sort of the nicest guy you could ever meet, he plays guitar and has a lovely wife, and a dog, thats like a labra-poodle.

Rick: Golden Doodle.

Russ: Yeah, Golden Doodle.

Milo: And he goes on hikes.

Russ: He goes on hikes and stuff like that, but he honestly writes the most disgusting and disturbing things I haveever read in my life.

(laughter )

Mel: Now what made you guys think that comics werethe best way to rst introduce Berserker?

Milo: I think its the acceptance of the comic fan to thatkind of super-heightened reality. ey not only wantto see a good story, compelling characters, but they also want to see something thats dynamic and reachesbeyond what the human capacity is. Lets just say that

with an hour in the screen with lm and television, thedifficulties we would run into at rst would just be saying,Hey heres a script about these people who serk out andrip people in half. In comics, we can just say, Lets justmake a kickass story and a great book. Visually tell thestory well and then from there show people: Oh, yeah.

is is how it is really going to look.

Russ: Yeah. I agree with everything that Milo says. Wehad met Matt Hawkins and he just sat down and laid itout what Top Cow is about. We were familiar with thecompany and we thought it would be great to write abook for Top Cow. Maybe we could do that in a year ortwo, and it needed to t into the Top Cow brand. We hadBerserker at the time and it was just like, Wow, this tsthe Top Cow brand. We just dont want to peddle shit.And it just seemed to make so much sense just being ableto give it to Top Cow.

Milo: Basically everything we had known about Top Cow,the titles that the company had released and then beyondthat, talking to Matt Hawkins and him just saying, Hey look, this is what our company is into, this is who we are.It was just a natural t, perfect.

Mel: What about you, Rick?

Rick: You know, I honestly hope that one day there willbe room in television to rip a mans face off and throw itat the camera.

(laughter )

Rick: I think that Milo and Russ really had it peggedfrom the beginning. is was a comic book story and themore I get to work with Rob and Filip and Top Cow anddevelop it, the more I am realizing how well this ts intothis medium. I am really looking forward to getting toexplore all of the stories that I think are in this world

in way you could never do in television or even lmswithout an X rating.

Mel: OK. So lets talk about the property itself. I guesswe will start with you Rick and then anybody else canchime in. What is the basic premise of Berserkerwhatis it about?

Rick: e basic premise is a group of people who arediscovering that they have this ancient Norse power.

ey know absolutely nothing about it and unlike mostorigin stories, which are sort of magical discoveries of Ican y or whatever; this is you waking up and peoplearound you are dead and it is your fault, and youre livingwith that and the choice as to whether or not you aregoing to try to control it or let it run wild. It is going tohappen one way or the other. at is the jumping onpoint. I think in the future (of the series) there is a richmythology that the whole thing is anchored to and thereare a lot of more updated, but older stories that we will be

able to tell through the eyes of a modern day character.And thats what I think is fun about the series.

Mel: Who are your main characters?

Rick: e rst character is Farristhe preview book isactually a peek into his back-story. At the start of issueone, he is dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,or thats what his therapist tells him. In reality is that heis dealing with this much darker thing inside of him andhe knows that the treatment he is going through is notactually helping. e whole thing comes to a head in areally ugly way and he is forced to question everythingand whether or not he deserves to live a er hes donesomething so terrible. It is this really dark story that willeventually branch out to where Farris will nd himself,but for right now he will have to go through some realdarkness. e other main character is Aaron, who is ahigh school student and an athlete. He grew up without adad and he has this terrible existence with only one goodthing in his lifehis girlfriend. His power is going todeeply affect that. at is what the rst six books areabout: these two guys who have this experience and ndthemselves completely lost as a result.

To read the rest of Mels interview with Milo, Russ, Rickand Jeremy check out www.myspace.com/comicbooks.

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