Neil Kleid on going ‘Medieval,’ new baseball/time travel story from Comixology Originals

Of all the sub-genres in the world, one of my faves is the “man-out-of-time.” (Or, really, out of his nation or dimension of origin, really.) You’ve got A Man Out of Time, Army of Darkness, Baby Steps, Gulliver’s Travels, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, among many others. Clearly if you want a man to learn some valuable life lessons, you pull him from his comfort zone and make him experience an existence among strange people/land.

Now, writer Neil Kleid and artist Alex Cormack have offered their own entry to his hallowed hall of fiction with Medieval. Here, baseball fan and all-around loud-mouth Danny Landau wakes up in 6th century England after being smacked by a line drive. When he’s done boozing it up, Danny will have to use his (limited) future knowledge and his custom iron bat to help King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table and find a way back to his girlfriend and his beloved New York.

Admittedly, Medieval leans into a lot of those aforementioned influences (mostly A Connecticut Yankee), but that’s a good thing. Because Kleid and Cormack have given us the a prime example of the man-out-of-time, and Medieval sees Danny have to learn the hard way about the meaning of home, fighting for what’s yours (and maybe when not to fight?), and how we can all be the hero if we just get out of our own way. It remains to be seen if Danny can learn his lessons and make it back, but you just might find Medieval to be your cup of tea strong mug of ale.

Medieval #1 debuts this week (November 11) via Comixology Originals. Ahead of the release, we caught up with Kleid via email for a proper deep dive into all things Medieval. That includes his thoughts on baseball, the book’s connections to his past projects, how he wrote/fictionalized history, working with Cormack, his favorite moments, and Danny’s interesting personal arc.

AIPT: Where did this idea come from? Is it at all a (thinly veiled?) commentary on baseball and its, um, many splendid fans?

Neil Kleid: No, no. I’m clearly not that smart. Honestly? I had just finished producing two very heavy, emotional comic books through Comixology — The Panic with Andrea Mutti, and Nice Jewish Boys with John Broglia and Ellie Wright — the latter of which may have been one of the most personal, introspective books I’ve ever written. Drained, I was casting about to write something a bit more visceral and cathartic for my next project, with big explosions or fights, or something a bit more wide-screen…and also something a little more commercial, if I’m telling the truth. I had also just written an X-Men prose novel, so I had scratched the superhero itch for a bit…

…and, while trying to figure that out, I happened to read Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, a book I’ve been threatening myself to read for a few years now. And yes, I read it for fun.

Now, I’m not exactly what folks would call a “sports guy,” but I do like sports books, movies, and TV shows. Over the last decade, I’ve definitely become more of a “sports guy” — having worked at Topps for six years, and having been a Detroit sports fan since I was a child. I don’t claim to know everything about my teams, the various sports, or the intricacies of statistics and rankings and even some of the lore: I know just enough to be dangerous. I used to love playing baseball and football when I was younger, and cheering on both the Tigers and Lions as a kid. A lot of that love has passed along to my own kids…with whom I root for those teams now, as well.

So, as all of the above was spinning in my head and coalescing in the vast Alan Moore Ideaspace of Comics, two specific things happened in parallel:

1) I decided that I wanted my visceral, cathartic comic to be a sports comic.

2) While reading A Connecticut Yankee, my mind kept accidentally slipping up and saying A New York Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

Now, I realized there was an opportunity to satisfy both parts of what I was looking for by sticking a sports fan (like myself) into the heart of Twain’s narrative. I figured it could be fun to have some loudmouth from the Bronx take a baseball bat to the Vulgate Cycle, running around with his New York accent and attitudes and showing his ass (which he does in issue #1) to both the English peasantry and royalty. Matt Wagner — with his excellent comic book Mage — had already done the whole Excalibur-as-a-baseball-bat, so I didn’t want to do a poorer version. I also wanted to stay away from the whole “baseball-is-magic” thing, because Michael Chabon handled that quite well in his young adult fantasy novel, Summerland. I wanted to stake my own claim and do something outside my wheelhouse…but also write a comic book that was still very much a Neil Kleid Story.

So, I chose to lean into the whole visceral thing and unpacked Twain’s story a bit more, thinking about the plot from a modern-day sensibility — but not simply “Hey, what about iPhones in 6th century England”…rather, digging deeper and thinking about what might happen if a regular dude (like me) got stuck in the past with limited knowledge about how to actually bring an iPhone to King Arthur, so to speak. Our hero Danny (again, like me) knows just enough to be dangerous. And that not only presented to me an interesting man-out-of-time story, but also one borne of desperation and violence…one that could also be about unrequited love and grappling what it means to find yourself when everything you know or have is stripped away.

And, you know, yeah — it’s about baseball. Medieval may not be a dyed-in-the-wool sports story, but it’s definitely in spitting distance. It’s about what it means to love the great game, especially when everything else you love is gone. And there’s also a whole lot of cussing and blood. So, you know…comics!

AIPT: You’re clearly playing around with history and established stories (including A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court). How do you balance those stories, and respecting them, and still doing something fun and novel?

NK: So for those who haven’t read Connecticut Yankee, it’s about Hank Morgan, a modern dude who knows seemingly everything that there is to know about, well everything: how to start a newspaper, construction and home repair, military strategy, maybe even tai chi? You name it; Hank can do it. Now…personally, if I were stuck in 6th century England? I could maybe teach folks about how to make comics, books and movies, and how to make a really good pizza or grill a fantastic hamburger. I could change a light bulb but wouldn’t be able to invent it…or the automobile, telephone, or computer, or even a proper toilet. Yeah, I might rip off a bunch of popular novels and songs and invent the comic book years before its time. But introducing the Industrial Age to Camelot and the Table Round? No dice.

So, first of all, if I was planning to write a “modern guy ends up in Camelot” story I wanted to keep it somewhat grounded.
Second, the big rule I came to Medieval with was “f**k the research.” Look, I am not an Arthurian scholar. What I know about King Arthur you can learn from three kids movies, another one starring Charlie Hunnam, a bunch of random comics and cartoons, and a handful of myths. I haven’t studied 6th century England or the Arthurian legend, or even obsessed about the Green Knight or the Holy Grail (Oh, wait; you can add Indiana Jones to the aforementioned list, right before Charlie Hunnam.)

Yes, I could have spent months delving into the various legends and mythologies, the poems and books and films…but again, I wanted something visceral and emotional and even a bit accessible. I keep using this line, but I went into writing an Arthurian comic book with enough information about Camelot to be dangerous — and nothing more. I read Twain’s book, and I knew what I knew. The rest? It’s about a New York baseball fan who likes to drink, can build a toilet, hits things (and people) with a bat, and loves a girl.

That was all I needed to respect. And because of the rule, it allowed me to give myself the license to subvert or avoid anything considered “canon” and in doing so, make it fun and novel. I didn’t care whether or not I was presenting the various knights and legends and ladies familiar to those who love the Lancelot-Grail Cycle and anything connected to Camelot in any way that felt like what folks might come to expect or feel authentic. In my story, Sir Gawain can be an asshole and sell soap on the side. In my comic, Lady Guinevere isn’t who you’d expect, and neither are Lancelot, Merlin, or even the king. And all of that is very much okay — because it is fun. It is loud. It is violent and emotional and its very own thing.

The comic is a baseball bat to the skull. It’s a tug on your heartstrings. It’s a f**king man-out-of-time comedy and a change of pace for me and for my readers; something new. Something bloody. Something you don’t have to really think about.
Oh! And it’s inspired by DC Comics’ Lobo, and the bleacher creatures at East 161st Street, Bronx, New York, and Field of Dreams, and The Sword in The Stone, and any rock ‘n’ roll fight song that’s ever been made…and also by all those other ridiculous movies about anyone who ever got themselves knocked out and ended up back in Camelot, a stone’s (or baseball’s) throw from the legendary blade Excalibur.

And hey; that’s all right. There are no rules. Let’s get f**king medieval, huh?

AIPT: Similar to that last question, what appealed to you about all things Camelot to “repurpose it” for this story?

NK: So, aside from all of the above, I had co-authored (with Jake Allen and Frank Reynoso) a fantasy comic titled Kings and Canvas — a book about a changed America where battles and wars are settled in boxing rings instead of on the battlefield. For that book, I had thought a lot about how medieval jousting was a lot like boxing, and spent a ton of time creating an amalgam of the two.

For Medieval, I wanted to explore a bit of the same. We have actual jousts, but also (spoiler!) a home run derby. I love having the opportunity to take an established piece of history or literature and be able to give it my own spin. Setting a story in Camelot is like a literary rite of passage for a writer, no? Telling a King Arthur tale wasn’t something I had ever seen myself doing when I got started in this business, desperate to write Spider-Man or the X-Men. But, hey, I’ve already done both of those things, so why not give Arthur Pendragon a whirl?

AIPT: What was it like working with Alex Cormack? I feel like there’s something quaint and sentimental about his art, and it rules even harder when this book gets violent.

NK: Let’s get this out of the way: Alex is a Boston Red Sox fan, through and through. He did not want to work on this…for, like, half a minute until I let him read the pitch. To all of you Boston fans out there — Alex Cormack is no traitor to Yawkey Way or Red Sox Nation. His first question, I shit you not, was, “Does Danny have to be a Yankees fan?”

Look, the [Keith] Giffen and [Simon] Bisley Lobo series was a huge influence on me when thinking up Medieval. I don’t know (and probably couldn’t afford) Simon, so that was a big non-starter. Alex was really the only one I had in mind for the book, because his artwork has always felt a bit “Bisley-esque” to me. I love what he and David Pepose did with The Devil Wears My Face and I devoured Drive Like Hell (with our pal, Rich Douek.) Both are phenomenal comics and a lot of that is due to Alex’s artwork which (like this story) is visceral.

It bleeds across the page and physically hurts the characters he forces to wade through his inks and colors. But, as you say, his art is equally quaint, disquieting and picturesque — atmospheric shots could double as flyleafs in some of the very best fantasy literature. His panels are atmospheric and rich, his characters are unique and compelling; you can get lost in both Alex’s blacks and reds for hours…and some days I have a hard time not getting stuck inside a panel as I try to letter it, worried about marring his beautiful art with stupid dick jokes.

And then he emails me a page that’s nearly 100% percent red, dripping with gore and teeth and broken jaws, and I realize how much of a perfect marriage this is, between art and story, and I couldn’t even imagine doing Medieval with anyone else.

(Also, his covers are stunning. I want to put each of them on the side of a different panel van and also print ‘em on t-shirts.)

AIPT: What’s your assessment of Danny: Is he a fool to be laughed at, or is there something endearing about him? Is he somehow all of us when faced with change or perhaps who we all try not to be?

NK: I think there’s a little Danny Landau in every one who wants to love what they love, and be a little better than they were the day before. Every single one of us has principles we’re willing to compromise to achieve our goals…and we’re all loyal to something — even if the people next to you can’t understand why.

A fool? I don’t think Danny is a fool. I think he’s actually quite reasonable and relatable (and, yeah, endearing if you can ignore — or maybe embrace — the f-bombs.) Personally, I think Danny is the modern everyman who realizes how little he actually knows when faced with culture clash or being placed far out of his element. Look, for those who have traveled internationally, it’s difficult to navigate countries where you maybe can’t speak the language or decipher the road signs and currency. Sometimes I ask my teenage kids to imagine themselves being thrust back to a place where they cannot rely on their cell phones or GPS or smart watch to figure out how to get from place to place, communicate with friends, or figure out the weather.

Now, in that scenario I’m just talking about the 1980s! But imagine going further, to a time before indoor plumbing or fireplaces or hygiene or modern medicine. I don’t think that’s something to be laughed at — who knows how any of us might handle that sort of jarring culture shock?

Ultimately, the reason I believe Danny is not a fool is that he isn’t trying to be anyone but himself…even when he has to change and adapt. What you see with Danny Landau — for better or worse — is what you get. He’s honest, in that regard. Personally, that doesn’t make him a fool at all. I think it makes him a hero.

AIPT: Do you have a favorite moment or page/panel in Medieval #1, something that gets to the essence of this story?

NK: Well, without spoiling anything, I’ll say that my favorite part of writing this comic was how much fun I got to have with the dialogue. It’s absolutely gut-busting to me and a true joy to be able to layer medieval, 6th century translations on top of modern-day phrases and slang. Sure, letting out my inner gutter and thinking up ways for Danny to insult most of the Table Round and King Arthur’s Court was one hell of a release…but the juxtaposition of Danny’s Bronxisms and Ye Auld England…I got a kick out of that.

But to answer more directly: once you get past all the blood, violence and baseball there’s a moment near the end of Medieval #1 where we find Danny trying to invent electricity just so he can charge his dead smart phone to see pictures he has of the girl whose face he hasn’t seen in a year and is finally starting to forget. The process isn’t going well, and he gets incredibly frustrated. That emotional scene really gets to the core of what this comic is all about: the beating heart, as it were, beneath Medieval’s grubby, angry, hairy exterior.

AIPT: Given that Danny invents the flushing toilet several hundred years early, I assume accuracy isn’t your biggest concern. But how do you decide what to stay true to and what to play around with/embellish//etc.?

NK: Well, I answered the bit about accuracy above. As to what stays and what goes, it really was about me sitting back and being honest with who Danny is: what would he know how to do? What wouldn’t he know how to do? What wouldn’t he know how to do but try to do anyway?

Danny wouldn’t think to himself, “Oh, f**ck, why not write all these famous books or invent the movies or be Bill Gates and get super rich.” Because unlike Twain’s Hank Morgan, Danny doesn’t have any of that know-how nor the temperament. This is a guy who loves baseball, and knows how to build a baseball field, and so he does — as we see in issue #1. He knows how to install a toilet…and could probably learn how to build one from scratch if given them time — and as we know, he’s had a year.

As the issues drop, we’ll see other modern-day conveniences appear; some because of Danny, and some because of…well, that would spoil it, right? But Alex and I definitely wanted to make sure that if we did play around with a legend or introduce an anachronistic device, it would make sense in service of the narrative we’re telling.

AIPT: In the backmatter, you comment about this title being removed from your other “over-written dramatic treatises.” Does your approach to structure, characters, etc. change when you’re “trying to have fun?”

NK: If you’ve been nice enough to read any of my other comics or graphic novels — you can find some of them here — you know that I’m a big fan of emotional tales that are often laced with themes of legacy and the passing of a mantle. Some of them are heavy, dramatic, and involve a whole lot of soul-searching.

Not to say Medieval doesn’t include some soul-searching…but I would say that for this one I really wanted to keep a lot of it on the surface: hearts on sleeves, as it were, when it isn’t about teeth on floors. This one still had an outline, and still had some world-building…but the scripting came straight from my gut versus from a combination of my heart and head. Medieval leads with its gut, in fact. If you’re a fan of my Detroit Lions: this book has grit. I don’t know if I’ve ever written anything like that before, with grit, but this is definitely a comic book tale willing to dig in and drive for 70 yards through the Green Bay Packers defense. Oh wait; it’s a baseball story.

So, then it’s definitely a story willing to mug you for your Aaron Judge jersey with a two-by-four as you ride the 4 train through Manhattan to the Bronx. (Oh hey, maybe I am a sports guy!) So, sure; the structure is the same. My approach to characters and page turns are the same. But the tone and dialogue…even some of the plotting? It’s all gut and grit.

AIPT: Do you feel like this story is inadvertently made for this day and age? It almost reads like “The Field Guide to Survival When Things Go To Hell” or something.

NK: A great deal of it is based on survivalist media that’s always been popular — how would you survive the zombie apocalypse or the super-flu, for instance? And some of it is laden with my own potential trials and internal struggles with that sort of thing, especially as someone who really would be mulch or sacrificed after the bombs go off because, hey, what skills does a writer/designer bring to the post-apocalypse?

I mean, things going to hell is just life, folks. There’s not always time travel involved, but we really should be prepared to figure out what’s next after the rug — or the century — gets pulled out from under us (especially as democracy and civility seems to be getting smashed apart these days, like a f**king tacky wrecking ball through the East Wing of the goddamn White House.) So, sure…like all stories about massive displacement, I think Medieval — and Danny’s predicament — is pretty relatable…

…but the reason, I think, that the story is truly made for this day and age is that it’s about trying to figure out who you are and what you can offer (to others, to yourself) when the rug or century flips you upside down and on your f**king skull. It’s about coming to terms with who you are in the face of losing who you were. And, yeah, it’s about learning to let go of the things (and people) you love.

AIPT: What can you tease for the rest of this Medieval? That reveal at the end smacked me in the jaw with the heft of a Louisville slugger.

NEIL: Like I said, it’s a hell of a ride. The twist at the end of issue #1 really sets Danny on the road toward not only his own sort of catharsis — especially after being stranded in sixth-century England for a year…but also drives him — like a runner rounding third, headed for home — headlong into confrontation and the horns of an emotional and historical dilemma. What I can and will say is if you are a devoted sports fan, you often feel like every other team, fandom, official (and, sometimes, god) is stacked against you with every single game. Danny? He’s about to be one man against a nation. And all he’s got is a baseball bat. It won’t be pretty.

Also funny you should say “Louisville Slugger.” For my 50th birthday, a trip to Whiskey Row along downtown Louisville resulted in my creating a custom Medieval Slugger with our man Danny’s inscribed on the barrel. Maybe one day I’ll be able to bring it to a convention.

AIPT: What team would bring/does bring out your inner Danny Landau? I’ll accept any answer except the Yankees.

NK: It’s Detroit versus Everybody, my Motor City fam. If we’re on the diamond, stick me in white, orange, and navy blue. If it’s the gridiron, silver and Honolulu blue. Honestly, I know this is a book about a New York baseball fan, but Danny could have just as easily been a devotee of Lions coach Dan Campbell who famously said, “We’re gonna kick you in the teeth, and when you punch us back we’re gonna smile at you, and when you knock us down we’re going to get up, and on the way, we’re going to bite a kneecap off.”

But then, if he were a football fan (I mean…who’s he gonna follow — the Jets?!), Danny wouldn’t have gotten this cool as hell f**king baseball bat, right? And trust both me and Alex: Danny is sure as shit gonna need that bat.

AIPT: Is there anything else we should know about Medieval, comics, baseball, history, etc.?

NK: Baseball season might be over, sports fan, but never forget that some rivalries are positively f**king medieval. This one has it all — grit, bats, blood, horses, knights, fights, flagons, dragons (whoops!), swords, kings, ringers, dingers, wizards, and women. It’s brutal, sure, but it’s also a love story. Read it in the Kindle app on your mobile device once it goes on sale.

To keep updated about Medieval and my other books and comics from Comixology Originals or otherwise, please subscribe to “Nice Jewish Word & Comics,” my sporadic Buttondown newsletter, where I talk not only about my work but also comics, movies, food, and random nonsense.

And thanks for giving Medieval a chance. We really don’t wanna have to send Danny over to convince you with his bat.