Summary

• Scrapper is a cyberpunk comic set in a dystopian world inspired by Blade Runner, tackling themes of gentrification, police militarization, and late-stage capitalism.
• The protagonist is a super-powered dog named Scrapper, who takes on a totalitarian corporation to protect his city and unite its urban animals.
• Created by video game designer Cliff Bleszinski, Scrapper aims to bridge the gap between children's media like Paw Patrol and darker, more mature content, with plans for an animated series, video game, and toy line.

A cyberpunk dystopia engulfed in Blade Runner-inspired aesthetic where only one brave super-powered canine is all that stands between complete societal collapse into totalitarianism and the chance for a hopeful future for all humanity... This is the world of Cliff Bleszinski’s all-new comic published by Image Comics: Scrapper.

Cliff Bleszinski (who is popularly known as CliffyB) is probably more recognizable to many of his fans as a video game designer rather than a comic book creator, having been responsible for the development of many games including the Unreal and Gears of War series. However, what Bleszinski is more than anything else is a storyteller, one who seems to enjoy changing the medium through which those stories are told on a fairly regular basis. From deg video games and producing Broadway shows to writing novels and creating comic books, Bleszinski is truly a jack-of-all-trades, and his debut comic book, Scrapper, is only the latest example of that.

As Bleszinski explains, Scrapper takes the idea of a ‘superhero animal’ that’s usually reserved for children’s media and gives it a more mature edge. At San Diego Comic-Con 2023, Screen Rant had the chance to sit down with Cliff Bleszinski to discuss Scrapper, and get into why this new story is one fans have likely never seen before.

Cliff Bleszinski On Crafting The World Of Scrapper

Screen Rant: Scrapper is kind of like a cyberpunk dystopia. Before we get into the main character, tell me about the world that you've crafted first.

Cliff Bleszinski: Well, it's kind of Blade Runner vibes. It's basically a metaphor for gentrification and the over militarization of our police forces. Right, but also, you know, about stray animals, you know, and the fact that they can kind of rise up and actually like, kick butt. And you know, I, the whole story is that I'll make it quick for you.

I had an Australian shepherd that I lost a while back, I had my own video game studio called Boss Key that crumbled, the dog was dying, I put him down and broke my heart for about a year, right. And once the year of spontaneous crying stopped, my wife found me a pomsky that's mostly husky.

I learned that feelings are like rivers or tributaries, where you can kind of like redirect them, and I redirected my sorrow from the loss of my Aussie into love this of pomsky And then I sat back, and I thought, you know, because I love creating worlds, you know, creating like Gears of War, working on Fortnite and whatnot. I thought, has there ever been a really badass dog superhero? And can you think of one?

Yeah, I mean, off the top of my head, maybe like Krypto.

Cliff Bleszinski: Krypto is not badass. I mean, you know, he’s for seven-year-olds.

My two-year-old loves PAW Patrol.

Cliff Bleszinski: That's my question. What happens when the kids who love Paw Patrol get a little bit older? What do they get? Is there room for something between Paw Patrol and the darker stuff, something that's kind of PG-13 rated?

This is a dog taking on this totalitarian company, it's kind of an overarching deal with modern society. It's pretty brutal. With [Scrapper] starring a dog, what made you want to take it in that direction?

Cliff Bleszinski: Because again, when the Paw Patrol kids get older, is there room for some Don Bluth kind of stuff? Like, All Dogs Go To Heaven? Dragon's Lair? You notice the style is kind of a little bit retro, right? Kind of Watchmen-looking. And so the goal with this is to make it eventually an animated series, a video game, and a toy line.

With my 25 years of video game experience, video games are often defined by the verbs of what the characters can do: run, jump, shoot, bark, etc. And so if you notice in the comic, Scrapper can do a lot of cool stuff. He has smell-vision. He has a super bark, and he ‘Hulks-out’ at one point.

We establish an Act One that he saves a child that's being abducted by the evil corporation. And he has his best buddy and he's essentially… I'm gonna spoil it if I keep talking. But, the thing is, this comes from a place of heart, because I wake up every day with this pomsky, her name's Lady, by the way. Yeah, named after Sansa Stark's Dire wolf [from Game of Thrones].

You mention Game of Thrones. Is there inspiration there? With the Dire wolves coming to protect their people [in Game of Thrones]? Is this kind of the same?

Cliff Bleszinski: This dog is protecting my sanity and my heart. And I'm madly in love with her. I think she's just a wonderful dog. And you know, she's a little bit aloof, though. You have to earn her affection, that's the husky in her. And so every day, I wind up going down the YouTube rabbit hole of like huskies throwing temper tantrums. And the thing is, is we actually scooped her up, coming back from the final season premiere of Game of Thrones. I'm friends with David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss]. In the final season, yeah, it was a little bit uneven. But we wound up getting to party with the cast until 4 in the morning in their hotel suite.

Then we went down to Charlotte, NC and picked up this beautiful little pomsky and my wife got a video of the first time I met her, and you could see the feelings in my face. I'm gonna get misty talking about it. I just love dogs, man. And so, we have a today at 5pm. And we're actually gonna open the showing that video. And hopefully it's a packed house. And I'm like, “Wow, great. People who liked my work are gonna see me get misty eyed”.

How does that translate into this comic with Scrapper?

Cliff Bleszinski: It's basically a labor of love, you know, and it's one of those things I'm friends with this guy, John Nee. He used to work at Marvel and then Cryptozoic. And he is embedded deep in the comics business. And he introduced me to this amazing badass woman named Alex De Campi. She did a book called Dracula, Motherf**ker!. She also did a book called Madi with Duncan Jones. Duncan Jones did Source Code, Moon, and the World of Warcraft film (also happens to be David Bowie’s son). And she's just been amazing to work with. And I found, creatively, as much as I like to create worlds in IP, I'm at my best when I have somebody to bounce ideas off of.

Bleszinski Explains The Creative Process Behind Writing Scrapper

You and your creative team, tell me how you get from idea to execution.

Cliff Bleszinski: Well, what I did was I, you know, came up with the overall IP, I paid out of pocket for all of it. So I own the IP, which is in the intellectual property world and entertainment is incredibly important. And then I paid for concept artists to concept Scrapper as a puppy as well as his ‘Hulked-out’ mode, and everything in between. And by the way, he's powered up with getting petted, by the way. So he can ‘get the scritches’, as the kids say.

Then I created all the lore, and then Alex [De Campi] came in, and she taught me how comics are made. This is the first comic I've ever done, right, in spite of the fact that I've read a ton of them. I love Garth Ennis, Preacher and The Boys and all that, and it's one of those things that, the way that she asked to do the script to describe every and the framing of it all. And then we have to get the pencils, the inks, the coloring, the lettering, and then also get a logo done by somebody else, and then cover variants. I never knew [cover variants] were that big of a thing as much as I like comics, like different shops get different covers and things like that. And I just got really thrilled when my preview copies arrived in my house.

We live on screens, right? Like, you know, everyone's like, “Oh, is it gonna be in Comixology?” Yes, it's on Comixology now you can check it out. But the thing is, we look at screens so much that I like my medium physical. On the back of my phone, I have a sticker that says “book slut”. My bookshelf is literally overflowing. I wrote a memoir, by the way, just came out in November called Control Freak about my life in video games. Anyway, shameless plug right there. Yeah, I like my comic books physical.

I can feel that, too, in this world. Because everything is just under a lens. You're a little late on a payment or whatever, you get basically a drone strike.

Cliff Bleszinski: Well, it's also a metaphor for late stage capitalism. Which I think we're honestly going through these days. I think capitalism is great to a point. And then, after a certain point, the rich get richer and the poor just barely get by. So that's kind of what this comic is speaking to.

And, Scrapper is, quite literally, an underdog.

Cliff Bleszinski: He really is. My favorite entertainment has heart. And that's one thing I think a lot of like superhero movies, forget these days. They always jumped to Act Three with the big CGI superhero battle. If you don't have the heart, I don't care about the big CGI battle. You know, when Tony Stark snaps his finger and says “I am Iron Man”, they earned that.

There's a YouTube video where you can see the audience reaction in the cinema that somebody videotaped and people just lost their minds. And that's where the magic comes from. It's the same thing with having, you know, important moments like in Age of Ultron, where Cap and Tony are having the debate outside Hawkeye’s farmhouse, and Cap grabs the wood and tears it in half. And you can see the setup for Civil War right there. And that's where it all comes together.

I think if you don't have that backbone with your entertainment, you don't have a leg to stand on. And that's where I think good entertainment comes from.

That heart in Scrapper, you can really feel it as you read the comic. What are some of Scrapper’s inspirations in the comic itself? He has one buddy in particular, and then the rats, I loved their dynamic. The birds [saying], “Notice me, Senpai”.

Cliff Bleszinski: That was all Alex [De Campi] by the way. Well, it goes back to the fact that I became a Broadway producer. I produced Hadestown, which wound up winning eight Tonys, and after my video game studio Boss Key wound up closing, and my dog died, it just broke me. And then to be there in Radio City Music Hall and to see it win eight Tonys, and then recently again, producing Once Upon a One More Time, the Britney Spears musical on Broadway, we were spending a lot of time in New York. And I realized, as they say, famously in Jurassic Park, “Life finds a way”.

I seeing stray dogs, stray cats, the pigeons, all of it. There's just so many urban animals, that when you really look around the city, I wanted to find a way to kind of unite them. And that's kind of what Scrapper ultimately winds up doing is helping to unite these animals with his powers and winds up throwing a revolution in the city.

Scrapper’s Super Power: Explained

You mentioned [Scrapper's] powers a little bit. Can you get into it a little bit more? What does this guy have?

Cliff Bleszinski: His coat is made of nanotechnology, so he's fireproof. The more powered up he gets, the more indigo he gets, his coat actually shifts and changes. And then, of course, he can ‘Hulk-out’. He has a super bark. And then he has this collar, and this collar is kind of my Looney Tunes Acme kind of thing where it can do whatever the hell I wanted to do. You know, it could send out tentacles to wrap up the bad guys. It can give him a jetpack. It can do all these kinds of cool sorts of things.

The other day, my wife frantically, actually made a version of the collar for our pomsky and posted a video on social media for it. And it actually lights up and everything she does cosplay. And she's very, very crafty. And then for me to see the pomsky that inspired this IP wearing the color that I came up with right before coming to Comic-Con and having a comic actually come out of Comic-Con was really an amazing moment for me.

One of the things that I love is creating these worlds and seeing something that I typed-up getting concept art for it and then seeing it come to fruition and seeing people love it. It's one of the biggest highs you can have in the world.

How does Scrapper compare to some of your other titles? You’re a big name in video games, where does Scrapper line up with all your other accomplishments?

Cliff Bleszinski: It's different. Well, it's actually full circle when I think about it because one of my first big games was a game called Jazz Jackrabbit that came out in the 90s. I being a child watching the Rambo movies, and thinking, ‘what if there was a Rambo rabbit?’ And Jazz was actually named after our dog, which was named after the Transformer Jazz in the first place. And I'm a big fan of alliteration. So I'm now back to making cool animal heroes. Gears of War was about seemingly big buff dude-bro guys, but ultimately had a lot of heart at the end of the day. The Unreal and Unreal Tournament games are just multiplayer games and whatnot, Fortnite multiplayer as well. And then it just came full circle where I wanted to tell a story that would hopefully make people feel something. That's why we create in the first place.

About Scrapper

Blade Runner-style action mixes with big emotions as stray dog Scrapper and his buddy Tank fight for justice against the totalitarian forces of a post-apocalyptic domed city. But when the fight comes to his home Scrapper will face losing what's most important to him - and gain a terrifying truth in the process. (Don't worry Mom. The dog doesn't die.) - Image Comics.

Scrapper #1 by Cliff Bleszinski, Alex De Campi, and Sandy Jarrell and published by Image Comics is available now.