[youtube embed: Conversations With Good Devils: Nick Dragotta & David Brothers on Fist of the North Star]

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Conversations with Good Devils is a series of observations from creators about the artists they love and the influence of those artists on their own work.

Fist of the North Star is a foundational action/adventure comic from Tetsuo Hara & Buronson, originally serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump in the ’80s. It’s available in English from VIZ Media.

Good Devils: Don’t Play Fair With Evil is a one-shot comic from Image Comics that collects three stories (“Good Devils,” “Fight Like Hell,” & “Go Back”) by Nick Dragotta (Absolute Batman) & David Brothers (Time Waits). Available at comic book shops on Wednesday, October 1, 2025. Lunar Code 0825IM0298.

David Brothers: Welcome to Conversations with Good Devils. Who am I with today?

Nick Dragotta: This is Nick Dragotta. I’m a professional comic book artist. You probably know me from Absolute Batman and East of West.

David: Yeah. A monster in the industry right now. And I’m David Brothers, your collaborator on Good Devils: Don’t Play Fair With Evil, a one-shot of three stories we did between 2021 and 2023, I think. And the first one is “Good Devils.” That’s kind of the first little idea we had. Do you remember when we went to Japan together and I went on like a quest for a Fist of the North Star book? Like the ebook that had the complete set?

Nick: Yes. [laughs] You you need to describe exactly what this ebook is, because I had never seen anything like it before.

David: So I saw this Kickstarter years ago, maybe 2016 or something. I didn’t have the money for it at the time. But it looks like an actual book, you know, like a proper trade paperback-sized book, but when you open it, it’s two e-readers placed side-by-side, like two portrait e-readers, and they display each page of the manga left and right.

They put every chapter of Fist of the North Star in this book, officially released. You could go to stores and buy it when it was popular, and then it was not very popular, so I had to go to a bunch of used bookstores in Japan to pick it up.

Nick: And so David, why would that be handy if you wanted to have all of Fist of the North Star in one one sitting?

David: We’ve got 10 volumes for the first part of Fist of the North Star and then I think it goes to volume 15 or 18 before it’s over? Like that’s a a shelf and a half, while this is just one book. It’s much easier to manage.

Nick: There’s a lot of material. So it’s nice to have it all in one digital…

David: Yeah. easy to reference [laughs]

Nick: It’s hilarious because this thing looks like an actual book. [laughs]

David: Yeah, I’ll have to put some pictures of it in the video. I wanted Fist of the North Star and I couldn’t get it any other way, and this hooked me up until VIZ started re-releasing them.

Nick: Yeah, I’ve been buying the new hardcovers.

David: Yeah, same.

Nick: And just kind of rediscovering the work.

David: Yeah, we got a lot of Fist of the North Star in common, I think, because in 2021, you asked me if I had any story ideas for a post-apocalyptic thing for an anthology you were working on called Cry Punch. You were like, “Fist of the North Star kind of homage, maybe remake it, play with the ideas…” What was it about Fist of the North Star that made you want to play in that sandbox, play in that mind state?

Nick: I mean, I think to me the core of like my comics particularly are the conflict and that is always portrayed through action.

David: Yeah.

Nick: One of the first movies I saw was Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, which came out in 1981. So it predates Fist of the North Star by two years.

So then when you discover Fist of the North Star, you’re like, “Oh, this is Mad Max in comic book form.” Like in its purest vibe of that, and just hearkening back to that. I was first introduced to Fist of the North Star through the anime, and then like most manga you then discover it, you get it first through an anime and then you discover the manga and you’re like, “Oh my god, the manga is so much deeper, so much more vast.”

Akira is like that. And Fist of the North Star was the same way. But I think for me it was that connection of of Mad Max and just the vibe and just the coolness of it. And now as an adult rediscovering it, I’m really blown away by the craft involved in the comic.

David: Yeah, I came to it from the anime as well. It was one of the first ones I saw. You know, I was very fortunate to have an uncle who was…he lived in Japan a little bit before I was born, so he kind of knew what to look for when it was hitting US shelves? And it was just this beautiful mix of Mad Max and Bruce Lee.

It captured my imagination as a kid. And again, as you say, as an adult, my relationship with it has changed because the violence that I enjoyed at first is there, but there’s also a core of kindness and sort of…caring about your community and the environment that I connected to as I got older.

Nick: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s something too, going back on the reread, is that Kenshiro wants to stop the violence. You know, that’s the whole goal, a future without violence. But it’s the only way he knows how to really communicate [laughs].

David: [laughs] He’s a hammer and everything looks like a nail. Rereading it on my digital ebook…which is a beautiful time…there’s an early chapter where he goes to rescue a young girl, I think from the the Red Beret gang. He does his final move and then he turns to comfort the girl. And that’s always stuck out to me as not something you’d expect from a book with Fist of the North Star‘s reputation. You think like, macho manly action. It’s not about comforting people. It’s about exploding heads! But it’s kind of about both. And I appreciate that kind of…it’s not a duality because they’re working in concert. That perspective, I think.

Nick: It’s the beauty of the comic, he’s empathetic for the weak and every chapter is him coming across someone basically that can’t stand up for themselves, but they’re also the key to the future. From the very beginning, he meets the little girl that gives him food. Yeah.

And I love…I love the intro. As an artist, you know, we in America are taught like, the Jack Kirby way, or Jim Shooter really put this across too. Establish a page of all the Marvel heroes and we’ll know exactly what they can do. Fantastic Four: The Thing’s the strongest, you know, Reed can stretch. Give us all the information on one page and then boom into the story, and as we know manga lets it breathe a little more…

Again, I think this book has influenced a lot. We open up on one of the Zeed gang and his chest is burst open as if an alien had come out of it. You know, as a reader you got to imagine reading this for the first time back in…’83? Just seeing that graphic of violence. You don’t know why this guy’s rib cage is opened up. They find this and they’re like, “Who did it?!” Turn the page. Awesome page turn of Kenshiro with his poncho on, walking through the desert.

I mean, that to me as a craftsman, that is the kind of stuff that really brings readers back and gets them to turn the page and then get to the end of the issue and want the next issue. Then there’s a panel after that awesome splash of Ken—and he looks badass walking through this, the sun’s behind him with the poncho, very like, Good, The Bad, and The Ugly…

I feel like we should mention Tetsuo Hara, the artist, is really drawing on a lot of influences from the early ’80s. Mad Max we know, but I also think Sergio Leone films…

David: You mentioned Stallone’s likeness.

Nick: Yeah! Seeing Ken in the poncho, but then we learn he’s weak. And the very next panel is just a drawing of his feet, but [Hara] perfectly portrays a stumble. We know now he’s weak, and then into what you were saying, the empathy of it all. So, it’s the rawest violence maybe ever put on a page, and then it’s also very loving because he’s fed by this small child who gives him his nourishment to then go on and defeat the bad guys.

And then also I love that the next chapter is the old man, with the seeds. It’s just like, wow. You just see these kind of cyclical influences too, because that was almost the plot of Fury Road, the older women with the seeds and “This is the future.” So he’s constantly looking for a better future.

David: Yeah. That’s good. And like growing plants, things like that, like gathering seeds, that’s always associated with kind of warriors finding peace in a way. Soldiers become farmers. Happens in a lot of stories that I read.

Nick: Yeah. You want to you want to cultivate, grow, rather than destroy, you know? I love those themes, and I think that plays into what we did in “Good Devils.” I mean, it’s all in there, too.

David: Yeah, definitely. I joke that “Good Devils” is our climate change anxiety project? It’s sort of like what if we reinvented Fist of the North Star from the ground-up with our own, like, looming apocalypse. In the ’80s it was, you know, nuclear war and then it ravages the earth. For us, it’s very much rising ocean levels, climate change, global warming, whatever you want to call it, and we came up with an action comic about fighting people to make the world better. I don’t know, what do you like about “Good Devils,” actually? Let’s sing our own praises for a minute. What do you think we got right on that one?

Nick: For me, it was probably the first project where I went all-in on trying to create like a manga. Yeah, I think it was my first experimentation with speed on the page, you know? And then also the stature. I really brought this over to Absolute Batman, too, because on my most recent trip from Tokyo, they had the Fist of the North Star exhibit.

David: Yeaaaaah.

Nick: Getting to see all of Tetsuo Hara’s artwork and how he worked and the influences… I remember I was there with Daniel Warren Johnson, James Harren, and I was right next to Jim. We’re looking at this art and we were like, “Everything’s got to go bigger.” Like what? We lost these vibes of like, this machismo in the art. It just seemed so cool. Everything was just ratcheted way up.

David: Yeah.

Nick: And then just the opportunity to bring that into a comic. And then coming off of East of West, I feel like it was very much more of a heavy political, plot-driven, you know. I would get in there and do some cool sci-fi violence and stuff, but this was to go back to real fisticuffs, speed on a page, and just drawing big stature, you know, going big. And drawing leather! Getting to draw some leather. [laughs]

David: I think it turned out great. Especially that two-page spread at the end. Actually, we should say “Good Devils” is essentially the story of Bella, who is our Kenshiro kind of figure, and she’s formed an organization, or she’s forming an organization, to fight against the evildoers of the post-apocalypse. So, she’s going out there and like clearing out, you know, militias and evil kung fu practitioners and whatnot.

I think for me, I was really happy that I could hit kind of a action movie tone. I feel like as a writer I like…I like a lot of violence but it can be tough to pair that violence with good dialogue. And kind of aiming for, you know, “we’re doing an action manga that’s similar to something from the past but not exactly like it,” like our own riff on the core concept—I feel like I hit a stride with some of that stuff.

Nick: Oh absolutely. Yeah. What I really admire about the writing in this too, is if you read Fist of the North Star too, you’ll see a lot of odes to it in terms of how you’re talking about the different techniques of fighting. I think Bella offers everyone the opportunity to be good before she kicks your ass. So, you know, it’s got that empathy in it, too. And I love the…there’s a lot of callbacks to it, in just the titles of the stories and whatnot.

David: Yeah, it’s…it feels like fan service. I mean, I guess it literally is fan service. We got a little “We’re already dead” in there, you know, the classic phrase. It’s just fun to make books like this and kind of explore our own interests.

Nick: Yeah. But I think, don’t you think…if you can pull from the right influences and then you put it through our filters and our experiences, you create something wholly new. Yeah. And I always love—I’ve never been the type of creator that is like, “I can’t tell anyone where I’m getting this stuff from.” As an artist, we’re all influenced and I think you should praise your influences so more people can discover the works and just really wear them on your sleeve, you know?

David: Yeah, I think that might be a good note to go out on, sharing the influences for our book overall. Like we mentioned Tetsuo Hara and Buronson for the story in “Good Devils.” We were looking at Hajime no Ippo and George Morikawa for the second story…

Nick: Absolutely. Yeah.

David: What were you looking at for “Go Back,” our third story in there?

Nick: I…honestly, David, that was probably me really finding my self. Those were…so, “Go Back” is a short story David and I did in backups for Newburn and it’s also collected in this Good Devils one-shot. 20 pages. We were doing five pages for each issue of Newburn. And for me, dude, that was on deadline. I would give myself a weekend to draw each of those stories.

David: Oh man.

Nick: And so as an artist, I was really heavily using reference. I was kind of like, you know, and it really led to some really cool page layouts and different type of design.

David: The brick after the shooting in the first chapter was really cool. When she’s kind of peeking around the corner. Like, great storytelling.

Nick: Yeah. Yeah. And I guess that to me, that’s probably a culmination of all the influences up until this point and where I was as an artist and then also just like simplifying to make sure I got it done in time. So, you know, I was penciling, inking, and lettering all of that. And then me and you would go back and do another round of edits and really tighten it up. But I’m very proud of the comic. I mean, everyone that sees it too, like, loves it. And let’s be honest, we’re both in the business. This is the way it’s made.

David: Yeah, it is.

Nick: It’s always on deadline. It’s always a rush job and, you know, you get some of your best work through that that process.

David: I think because it strips away a lot of the ego of the process. Like when I’m writing or drawing on my own, it’s like, oh, I have time to make this precious and perfect and yada yada. But sometimes you just have time to make it and that means you got to put all your strength towards getting it done. And I don’t know, I like…I appreciate that side of the process, let’s say.

Nick: I mean I like it too because it really kind of…you find happy accidents. I would have never drawn something like this with the design-y title pages, the use of black, you know, it’s very pared down and I really like that aspect of it. Like a lot of the reference, I’m kind of using a photo and just quickly going over it and trying to simplify it.

Some panels I even just did that posterize effect on the backgrounds or on some of the overhead shots—which you know is throughout a lot of our favorite manga and some of our favorite artists use that technique. So, it was kind of like opportunities to play in that space, but happy accidents and discovering your self and like… We started on our influences. This is a culmination of everything I’ve looked at, you know?

David: That’s a great way to put it, and I wish we’d put that in the marketing copy now that you say it.

Nick: Well, we are now, right? Isn’t this what that’s for?

David: Cool, man. Well, thank you. I think we got enough to uhhhh convince people to buy our book, Good Devils, on sale October 1st from Image Comics at your local comic shop. 64 page one-shot, perfect bound. We’ve got black and white. We’ve got full color. Three short stories. I don’t know. I think we got a good package coming together.

Nick: Yeah. A third of it is in color. And I would say two-thirds is black and white. And that’s the way we originally meant it. Yeah. I mean, if you like our past work, you’re gonna love this. I don’t think many readers have ever seen it all together and in print.

David: Yeah.

Nick: Especially not the direct market and in comic shops. So, I’m super excited to have that out on the stands.

Good Devils. Check it out.

Works Cited:
–Absolute Batman by Nick Dragotta, Scott Snyder, Frank Martin, Clayton Cowles
–East of West by Nick Dragotta, Jonathan Hickman, Frank Martin, Rus Wooton
–Time Waits by Marcus To, Chip Zdarsky, David Brothers, Marvin Sianipar, Matt Wilson, & Ariana Maher
–Good Devils: Don’t Play Fair With Evil by Nick Dragotta & David Brothers
–Fist of the North Star by Tetsuo Hara & Buronson
–The Road Warrior/Mad Max 2 (1981), George Miller (dir.), Terry Hayes, George Miller, & Brian Hannant (writers)
–Fist of the North Star (1986), Toyoo Ashida (dir.), Buronson, Tetsuo Hara, & Susumu Takaku (writers)
-Fantastic Four Artist’s Edition/Fantastic Four #83 by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Joe Sinnott, & Sam Rosen
-Mad Max Fury Road (2015), George Miller (dir.), George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, & Nick Lathouris (writers)

Mid-conversation shout-outs:
-Daniel Warren Johnson (instagram.com/danielwarrenart, danielwarrenart.com)
-James Harren (instagram.com/jamesharrenart)

The influences from David’s bookshelf:
–Bubblegum Crisis by Adam Warren, Roberto DeJesus, Joe Rosas, & Tomoko Saito
–Yoshikazu Yasuhiko’s Historical Illustrated Book by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko
–Dorohedoro by Q Hayashida
–Wolverine: SNIKT! by Tsutomu Nihei (twice, he’s that good)
–Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
–Avenging World by Steve Ditko
–Casanova by Fábio Moon, Gabriel Bá, Matt Fraction, Cris Peter, & Dustin Harbin
–Flex Mentallo by Frank Quitely, Grant Morrison, Tom McCraw, & Ellie de Ville
–Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo
–Hajime no Ippo by George Morikawa

Photo of David Brothers & a fan by Christopher Butcher, the rest by David Brothers.