The Quarter Bin

At New York Comic Con yesterday, I was given the chance to speak with Rob Reger, the creator and artist of the recognizable icon Emily the Strange. After meeting up at the packed Emily booth, Rob took the time to hang out and talk with me about Emily. Hit the jump to read what he had to say.

Yesterday on the panel, you said that Emily’s cats were inspired by actual real-life cats. Was Emily herself inspired by anyone you’ve known in real life?

Yeah, actually, she’s been inspired by a large number of people, not just one person. Actually a lot of it is about my own childhood and my own stuff… being a boy, that kind of seems weird maybe for other people. It’s also inspired by the kids and a lot of the creators that I work with, Grace, Jessica, Buzz, there’s a lot of stuff we bring from our childhoods. Not really a specific individual person, but more like our childhoods, and our adult lives as well, we bring into Emily as a kid. I’d say that I’ve met a lot of Emilys, though, and that’s inspiring.

I’ve read that Emily was originally created as an icon for a clothing line. Is that true, and if so, why a thirteen-year-old girl to promote a clothing line?

She was actually designed for a skateboard for Santa Cruz Skateboards originally. Then I started printing t-shirts and stickers. It didn’t really become a clothing line until a number of years in, it was just t-shirts with slogans and stuff… it just kind of ended up making sense, just different products to say different messages and the opportunity to make more and more types of things to sell Emily on came about and that’s kind of how the world of the fashion line got developed.

Now that Emily clothes are really popular, a lot of celebrities and pop stars that Emily probably wouldn’t be a fan of have been seen wearing her clothes. What do you think about this, and what do you think Emily would feel about this?

Well, personally, I like the PR, I like the exposure, I like the juxtaposition, always. Things that don’t necessarily belong together, I think that’s a very Emily type of thing, to do what shouldn’t be done or to do what people don’t think should be done. I think it’s more punk rock, probably, for Britney Spears to wear Emily than a goth girl to wear Emily. I don’t know, you know, you can see it a lot of ways, and it’s not an exclusive thing, and it’s not for everybody, so if someone’s into it, I say go for it. Cool, you’re welcome, you know.

You said yesterday that Emily is going to meet Gerard Way in an upcoming comic adventure. What other musical icons that she hasn’t met already would you like Emily to meet?

That’s a very good question. Let’s see, she has kind of met a lot of people that we really like. I’d like her to meet some of the people that are no longer with us. I’d love her to meet Joey Ramone, I’d love her to meet Miles Davis, I’d love her to meet John Coltrane, I’d love her to meet Ace Frehley, yeah, that would be a good one. Preferably Ace over Gene. But I’d like to meet Gene… But anyway, I digress. I’d love her to meet Kiss, I’d love her to meet Johnny Rotten, maybe? Joat Jett, she hasn’t met Joan Jett yet.

Patti Smith, we were very close to having a strip done with Patti Smith, she was very interested in it, but then she got busy around the deadline we had, so maybe we could still make that happen.

It was announced yesterday that Manic Panic hair dye and Emily are going to be teaming up. What is the Manic Panic Emily line going to consist of? Are there going to be any new colors?

Yeah, we have our own range of colors. We have, let me see, we have Emily Sees Red, Soylent Green, and we have Purrrrrrple, we have Mystery Pink. So yeah, we’re gonna have the dye. We’re also gonna do some of the fun stuff, like the hair extensions that they have, we’re gonna do some fingernail polish with them, I think some lipstick as well.

I have to ask: do you have any idea when we can expect an Emily video game or movie?

I have an idea, it will be in my lifetime. Absolutely. Before I die. This stuff just takes a long time, you know, the deals take a long time themselves, and then the actual making of stuff takes a long time. So we’re still in the middle of all that. We have a number of interested parties on both the game and the film right now. As long as you stay alive, I’ll stay alive, and we’ll make a game and a movie, how about that?

Can you say anything about the gameplay aspect? I know you can’t get specific, but as far as maybe what kind of game it’s going to be or what genre it’s going to fall into?

It’s gonna be fun. It’s gonna be adventurous. It’s gonna be something that makes you use your brain a little bit. It’ll be a game, but it will also be very creative-based. It will be a lot of exploration and creation. I can’t really talk about platforms or any of that yet, because it’s just not sorted out yet.

Anything else you want to share with everyone at TheQuarterbin.com?

I think that I’d like to just give a shout-out to the website, EmilyStrange.com. It’s the best place to buy merchandise, it’s also the best place to meet other fans of Emily and communicate. I really say if you’re an Emily fan, join the Society of Strange. There’s about 80,000, no, about 100,000 Society of Strange members now, and they’re all talking online. You can get a profile, set it all up, very similar to MySpace and how it functions. I think people would love to have you, so join the posse.