Interview with Neil Kleid of Ursa Minors

Here’s the full text of the Q&A between writer Neil Kleid and I, a portion of which was in Friday’s The Oklahoman. Kleid is the writer of “Browsville,” “90 Candles,” and “Action, Ohio.” If you’ve only read Kleid’s more serious work, though, you may not be prepared for the madcap antics of “Ursa Minors.” Kleid let loose in the interview, as well, which will give you a good idea of the flavor of the book.

Matt Price: Give me the lowdown on “Ursa Minors.” How do you describe the book to a potential new reader?

Neil Kleid: While I normally quip that URSA MINORS! is about three young men in their twenties, their robotic bear suits, and the women that love them. But these days, now that our pop culture-piss take super crazy ninja killing bear suit series is the talk of Hollywood and literary circles, I’ve nailed it down to the following: URSA MINORS! is, essentially, “Family Guy” for superheroes. Each of the original issues, now collected in a handy-dandy trade paperback collection for display in your breakfront next to your fine china and Elvis plates, references a wealth of comic book cliches, obscure film and teevee and twenty two pages (one-twelve for the collection!) of pure, liquid awesome.

Like ‘The Godfather’ but with robot bears, URSA MINORS! documents the lives of Tom, Rich and Harry, slacker heroes that answer the eternal question: “What would you do with robotic bear suits, equipped with everything you need to curb the world’s ninja problem?” Besides cussing, movie referencing, beer drinking and, of course, ninja @$$-kicking, Bears One, Two and Three use super-strength, night vision and razor sharp claws to defend Bigby City from robots, Nazis and Nazi robots.

MP: Tell me about your artist.

NK: Fernando Pinto, killer art robot, has been producing the funny since before he was born via intricate smoke signals, ultra-sensitive ultrasound scanners and a teeny, tiny placental appendage-slash-paintbrush. ‘Nando and I hooked up via the worldwideweb and he nailed what we were going for with the URSA MINORS vibe. Since then, he’s gone on to malign the Ninja Turtles and you can check out his post-partum artwork at http://www.funkydoodle.net

MP: It’s the “wait for the trade” edition - so, what do those trade-waiters have in store for them? Any extras included?

NK: You know it. See, we’re honest funnybook makin’ dudes. We understand the way the world works. These days, it’s all about the graphic novels, the comics with spines, the sequential pages you can bind and place on your bookshelf next to your copies of CATCHER IN THE RYE, HARRY POTTER and GARFIELD GETS JUMBO. We understand. Nobody’s buying single issues these days.

To that end - behold the collected wait-for-the-trade edition of URSA MINORS! Every time a single issue hit the stand, friends and family, new readers and old, they each one of them said they’d wait for the trade paperback. Well, jerks, here it is. What’s your excuse now? Not only is it here, but it’s 112 freaking pages and includes all the issues, all the back up stories, all the internet-only strips and features a new three-page introduction and an eight-page, never before seen URSA MINORS story. All this in a neat, digest-sized package.

MP: How did you get hooked up with Slave Labor?

JDate.

No, actually I’d handed a proposal to SLG Commander in Chief Dan Vado at the ‘03 Small Press Expo and a year later he foolishly emailed to say he was interested in publishing it. Ha ha! little did he know then what he knows now but should have known then!

Seriously, it was fate and luck and we’re all thrilled to be published by the good people at Slave Labor Graphics International Comics Consortium. They’re been treating us like kings and we probably owe them a couple of free massages or a barrel of beer.

MP: Are you familiar with the Brown University Ursa Minors?

Who do you think would win in a fight between your slackers with robot bear suits, and these female a capella singers? How about head-to-head on “American Idol”?

NK: I AM familiar with the Brown Ursas as they are the bane of my google existence, popping up every time I pathetically search for ‘ursa minors comic kleid’. Damn you women and your mellifluous harmonies!

As far as a fight between the Browns and the Bears (no football jokes, please!), I’d say that if it was down to a bare knuckle throw down, our boys from Bigby City would probably tear through those would-be Hannah Montanas like a Mack truck through a puppy. If it came down to a battle of bands, brains or anything that has to with actual intellect then the eighteen wheeler would be on the other foot. Wheel.

Whatever.

That being said, Bear Three has a lovely alto singing voice.