"Headlocked" Creator Talks Comics And Wrestling, Jerry Lawler Helping His Project, How Fans Can Help

I recently spoke with Mike Kingston, who spoke about his latest comic series, Headlocked: The Last Territory Vol. 2. Fans can help the project on Kickstarter, which has 4 days left and is close to reaching their goal.

Headlocked: The Last Territory Vol. 2, to be published by Visionary Comics and with cover art by Jerry "The King" Lawler, will feature stories by John Morrison, AJ Styles and Frankie Kazarian, and illustrations by guest artists including Booker T, Tony Atlas, Caylen Croft, Jill Thompson, Ben Templesmith, Jamal Igle, Box Brown and Ramon Villalobos. A special guest, to be announced shortly, will be writing the introduction.

Below is the full interview:

Wrestling INC: When did you start writing comic books?

Kingston: I've been at it for about six years now. Primarily focused on Headlocked, I've done a couple other things– projects and things who haven't seen the light of day– but Headlocked is primarily what I'm known for.

Wrestling INC: You're raising money for Headlocked Volume II, and you have a Kickstarter set up. Tell the readers a little more about the project.

Kingston: I've been a wrestling fan and a comic fan my whole life, and it always bothered me that there were no good wrestling comics. I would always buy them when they come out and they would always suck. I decided that I would write the wrestling comic that fans would want to read. I came up with this idea, some of it was born out of my own arguments–people vs. wrestling as an art form. The story is a bout a kid who's a theater major in college and falls in love with wrestling and decided he wants to become a wrestler. So he quits school and its his journey through the business starting on day one and navigating the underbelly of the business. (2:00) This middle class kid dropped in the wrestling business, examining wrestling through the eyes of a performance artist.

Wrestling INC: Did you grow up a wrestling fan?

Kingston: Yes, since I was 8. The very first Saturday Night's Main Event, we were flipping channels and I actually saw George "The Animal" Steele. He was sort of the guy that hooked me. Then I watched in some capacity my whole life. It's funny, I think (Saturday Night's Main Event) hooked a lot of people. Every Sunday morning I'd flip through the paper and see if Saturday Night's Main Event would be on that week.

Wrestling INC: So you stayed a wrestling fan the whole time?

Kingston: Yeah. There was a time period where I was getting a little burned out– like early 2004– and thats when I discovered Ring of Honor, the CM Punk/Raven feud and Samoa Joe's title run. I discovered the indies and that reinvigorated my love for wrestling. I was driving all over the place going to indies. I went to every Ring of Honor show that had Jamie Noble on them, I was such a Jamie Noble fan. I love CHIKARA, I love everything. There's a fed in my area called 2CW that I really like. There's a lot of WWE fans, and not as many wrestling fans. If the whole roster got fired tomorrow and went to TNA, a lot of people still wouldn't switch.

Wrestling INC: What are your thoughts of the product today?

Kingston: It's difficult. There's so much talent. There's too much talent for it to be in the state that it's in. Everything that shows up on TV is through Vince McMahon and gets his blessing, and of course TNA has its own set of problems. The guys take the heat for that, but the guys can get over but they don't get a lot to work with sometimes. That's a shame, because there's so much talent all over the place. For a while I think TNA had the best roster in wrestling, but couldn't put storylines together. It's a shame.

Wrestling INC: With this comic book, you're sort of creating your own storylines, right?

Kingston: To a certain extent. It's more about the character's journey through the business– behind the scenes and learning the craft. Some characters have stories, but it's more about the people, the culture and the art form than anyone fighting for the title or anything like that.

Wrestling INC: Did you talk to many wrestlers when creating the series?

Kingston: So far, I really didn't have to do much. I did have to ask if it was possible for one person to put up a ring by themselves. Half said no and half said yes, but everyone agreed that it's a dick move to make someone do it by themselves. Everybody in their life has wanted to do something, that flicker of "I want to do that" type of moment. Whether it's music, cooking, TV, acting. You go through the series of emotions and doubts– I put a lot of my journey though the comics business into my mentality because it's essentially the same thing. The specifics are different but the broad strokes are the same thing.

Wrestling INC: You got a lot of legends who are involved in this– John Morrison, Jerry Lawler, AJ Styles– how were you able to get them on board and what has their response been?

Kingston: When I started it was just me and my book. A couple of guys like RVD and Hurricane, I met them at San Diego Comic Con and they bought copies of my book and reached out to me and told me they liked the book. Jerry, I just contacted him through his website. I forgot that I did it, and he e-mailed me back, and then I got a phone call. He's done three covers for me and we do shows all the time. I consider him a friend, he's a fantastic guy. All of these guys have bene awesome. Their passion about wrestling and comics and art. I've had over a dozen guys to do stuff and help me out. I think that's pretty amazing.

Wrestling INC: So how can fans help out?

Kingston: The biggest thing that we struggle with is awareness. Just like wrestling is dominated by WWE, comics are dominated by a couple of publishers. It's very hard to get coverage, retail space as an independent. We do the Kickstarter thing, and that's really the best way to help. It's basically a pre-order for us. Anybody can donate, if you just want to get a copy of the book you can put in to get a copy and we send it right to you. It helps us fund the production of it. I don't make any money off of Headlocked, I have a regular job. The artist, the printer, that's how they feed their families. We need to have money to produce the book, it's not a cheap thing. Everything is hand-done. Kickstarter– that's really the best way to help us. We have reward tiers where you can get the first book, you can pre-order the second book, you can pledge for both of them in digital or print form. We have different tiers of accessibility that are affordable to anybody.

The project is less than $1,000 shy of raising $20,000 by November 4th, the date in which it must be completely funded in order for the project to begin. You can back the project at Kickstarter by clicking here.