The Adventures Of Shady And Rose

What if two of the most infamous serial killers ever somehow evaded the police and ended up retiring to the same nursing home? That's the idea behind The Roberts, a new two-part comic book from Image Comics by Milwaukee writer (and occasional Decider contributor) Justin Shady and Chicago artist Erik Rose. Also credited to Shady's old pseudonym Wayne Chinsang—which Shady plans on discarding when he moves to L.A. next month to pursue screenwriting—The Roberts posits a "what if?" scenario in which the Zodiac killer and The Boston Strangler face off later in life as crotchety old men. (They both happen to be named Robert, hence the title.) Shady and Rose met under less chilling circumstances at Tastes Like Chicken, a print magazine once operated by Shady. In this thrilling three-issue story arc, Decider reveals how the dynamic duo of Shady and Rose completed their first comic book together.

Issue No. 1: "Rise! Roberts, Rise!"
Where our heroes hatch a plan for world domination
Justin Shady: I had this idea about two grandmas that move into a nursing home together, and both of their husbands have passed away, and their kids have grown up, and they realize they are both closeted lesbians. And they become lovers. I was going to name it Grace And Dorothy, which are the real names of my grandmothers. Then [Kansas serial killer] BTK got caught, and I was kind of intrigued by his story, which is that there was this serial killer who got to live his whole life—he got to retirement age, and he had a family—and he almost got to the grave without getting caught. So the lesbian grandmothers become serial killers, and Grace and Dorothy became Robert Kenneth Sprunger and Robert Joseph Steib, which are my grandfathers' full real names.
Erik Rose: The Roberts is the kind of stuff Justin and I talk about all the time. "What if there was a cow on the moon and it was a serial killer?"

Issue No. 2: "Partners In Crime"
An idea is born, but will it survive long enough to tell its tale?
JS: Erik and I have known each other for eight years. We had worked together on Tastes Like Chicken, and we went to the same school. But we never worked on a comic book. I had this story and I knew I wanted Erik to do it. I e-mailed the publisher the idea, and after they picked it up I called Erik. I was like, "Erik, you're drawing a 96-page book!"
ER: I didn't even know he was pitching it. He called up and he was like, "What do you think about doing a book? It's about serial killers and they already said yes." And I said yes. It was a no-brainer.
JS: When this all started, Erik had some hesitation about using real serial killers. He thought maybe we should just make up somebody: Here's Johnny Serial Killer and Jimmy Serial Killer. The people that these two killers affected are still alive, but I think enough time has passed. There was a movie where Jamie Lee Curtis' dad played The Boston Strangler. If they can do that, we can do this.
ER: When I first read it, I was thinking, "If a relative of mine had been killed by one of these bastards, I wouldn't want to see my relative drawn in a comic book." When it came to the victims, I didn't want to look at pictures of what the actual people looked like. And I asked Justin if we could change the names or talk about victims nobody knows about, to make it more fictional. We're making a comic book here, and I don't want anybody to be hurt by entertainment.
JS: One of the things I like about the Zodiac is that he wore a mask. He looks like a comic supervillain. Whereas Ed Gein and Dahmer are more real. The fact that Zodiac wore a mask and wrote little riddles to the police like a Batman villain is kind of funny, like a game almost. Jeffrey Dahmer taking a guy's head to work in his lunchbox, and walking by the Milwaukee River on his lunch break to look at the head, that's just fucking crazy.

Issue No. 3: "A Match Made In Hell"
Our duo finishes the book and emerges victorious
ER: I think we have a shorthand with each other and we have a respect where I know he's going to write something that kicks ass, and he trusts me enough to interpret that and go whichever direction I need to. It's a fine line between drawing exactly what the writer is writing and adding a new layer. I don't think I sent any pages to Justin where he said, "What the hell are you doing here?"
JS: We just found out that The Roberts is getting collected into one big book in February, because the sales have been really good and the press has been amazingly good.
ER: We keep talking about things here and there. If he has a good idea, he can give me a call and chances are I'm going to say yes.