Body Slamming Kickstarter - Headlocked: The Last Territory

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Crowd sourcing platform Kickstarter is now on its way to New Zealand - but Kiwi Michel Mulipola is ahead of the game. This independent comic artist and professional wrestler has long been using the  platform's social reach to bring the worlds of wrestling and comic books closer together.

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Michel Mulipola

With his American writing partner Michael Kingston, Michel launched a Kickstarter page to draw attention to a project that the duo believe will change the way professional wrestling is shown in comics. That project is ‘Headlocked: The Last Territory’, a graphic novel charting the journey of Mark Hartmann, a young college student who, after witnessing a professional wrestling match, drops out of college in order to pursue his dream of becoming a professional wrestler. Mark’s road is long and hard though, and he winds up with just one last shot at achieving his dream in a place called The Last Territory - the last independent wrestling organization in America. Mark's journey to a championship belt will see him battling life-sized Gods in the ring, along with the territory’s unscrupulous managers. Will Mark's dream finally become a reality? Readers will just have to wait and see.

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Michael Kingston

For Michel, the idea for Headlocked: The Last Territory began when he attended the San Diego Comic Con festival in 2011. Already a published comics creator, with work appearing in NZ comics anthologies published by independent studio Dealerman Comics, Michel was perusing the booths at the convention when he was drawn to a stand featuring Michael Kingston and his new wrestling comic book ‘Headlocked’. Explaining that he was an artist and a wrestler from New Zealand, Michel showed Mike his portfolio. Blown away by what he saw in Michel’s work, Mike uttered the fabled words “man I want to work with you at some point.”

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But the partnership itself was the result of sheer luck, according to Michel. “A friend of mine was going to Chicago and he wanted to take one of my comics over to show people my artwork," he says. “He happened to meet Mike over there, and when my name came up, [Mike] went 'I remember that guy', and because I had given my details to my mate, Mike hit me up a couple of months after that. He said he wanted a San Diego Comic Con exclusive, and [he wanted me] to do the artwork for it.”

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Needless to say, Michel was ecstatic. “It was a really quick turnaround. Mike looked over all the layouts that I was sending him, and I never got any criticisms or critique, he simply loved the work," he says. "This was the first time this has ever happened to me as an artist." Mike invited Michel to San Diego Comic Con last year to do a signing with him, something that made him feel like a "cool dude", and the first ideas for Headlocked: The Last Territory were born.

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The opportunity to work on the project also gave Michel the chance to bring his experience as a pro wrestler to the drawing board. Michel is a former New Zealand Heavyweight champ and two-time Armageddon Cup winner. He works as a headliner with New Zealand’s biggest independent wrestling organization, Impact Pro Wrestling (IPW) . Donning a mask and cape, he enters the ring as the terrifying supervillain known as Liger, whose only goal when entering the ring is "to beat people up.” Michel hopes that by incorporating his experience as a wrestler into the book, it will create a far more compelling and dramatic reading experience.

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“I live in this world. I fully understand the backstage politics that exist within wrestling, so it’ll be more like the tone of an HBO drama,” he explains.Headlocked: The Last Territory also has the support of many professional wrestlers both from New Zealand and overseas including WWE Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler, and WWE Superstar Rob Van Dam. Michel puts the support that he and Mike have received down to one thing: “there are actually a lot of pro wrestlers who are big comic book fans and you can usually tell who they are," he says. "They have a better grasp of telling the story and they're better at making the characters -  good or bad - more well rounded, and relatable”.

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Jerry "The King" Lawler

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Rob Van Dam

Michel is very up front about the advantages that social media and crowd source funding program Kickstarter have given ‘Headlocked: The Last Territory’. “The fact that Kickstarter exists, and there are so many successfully funded projects  shows that social media works because without social media you wouldn’t be able to get the word out," Michel says. "So y’know for Headlocked we have Facebook, Twitter and Mike’s been doing a lot of podcasts as well, and every time he does a podcast about Headlocked we get more backers," he adds. Michel believes that social media is the way of the future and says his team is embracing the changes because "that's where the people are."He also believes that distance is no longer an issue for collaborations between writers and artists who live across different time zones. “Distance isn’t really a factor anymore. There are a lot of artists who live overseas, doing work for the big companies because the digital age allows them to do it, and fairly quickly too.”Headlocked: The Last Territory reached its goal of $16,000 with 20 days left on the campaign. Michel suspects that the book will take about two months to complete before he hands it off to colorist Chuck Obah. The aim is to then have the book published by January. Pre-orders of the graphic novel are being taken at Arkham City Comics, where you'll also find Michel busy organising a whole lot of very cool activities for the celebration of DC Comics Villains Month (September).Check out the official Kickstarter page for Headlocked: The Last Territory, along with their official Twitter page for all details concerning the book, including production and release date. Contact Arkham City Comics for pre-orders.

Headlocked - The Last Territory Trailer from Atom Phly Media on Vimeo.

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