‘Andre The Giant: Closer To Heaven’ Author Talks Wrestling

Andre the Giant’s life story is coming to the silver screen, but you don’t have to wait until Lion Forge Comics releases the movie. Brandon Easton, an Eisner Award nominee whose previous works include the 2011 Thundercats reboot and season 2 of Marvel’s Agent Carter, wrote the graphic novel that inspired the biopic, “Andre the Giant: Closer To Heaven.”

Easton, a Baltimore native who grew up on a double dose of NWA and WWE, jumped at the chance to dig below the gluttonous drinking tales and WrestleMania III slam, and discover who was the man behind the giant legacy.

John Corrigan: Did the success of the book meet your expectations?

Brandon Easton: “I hoped that the graphic novel would have greater penetration than it did. I mean, it did well, but I hoped it would sell bigger than it did. It did well for a non-fiction independent graphic novel not about super heroes. (laughs) Because of the subject matter, I thought it would penetrate into the larger mainstream, but it didn’t.”

JC: Do you think it’s because you didn’t have the WWE machine behind it?

BE: “Box Brown’s Andre novel didn’t have the WWE machine behind it either, and it still hit the New York Times best seller list. It came out first and gobbled up a lot of the casual readers. So when mine came out, a lot of people looked at it as a cash grab. I even got into it with some people online who thought we were ripping off Box Brown’s book. I was like, look, Box Brown’s book is a completely different story. If you read them both together, you get a better holistic picture of Andre’s entire career. Whereas mine went a little more into his personal life, the other one dealt with personal stories from wrestlers, which I did not use because a lot of those stories cannot be verified.

As the movie gets made, and when it comes out, people will start gravitating toward the book and see how great it is.”

JC: What led you to pursue writing?

BE: “I’m an only child so I spent a lot of time going to the movies by myself. Every time I left a theater, I thought how I would have ended that film. I’ve always had the ability to imagine bigger worlds and imagine circumstances that were different than my own. Writing gives me the ability to speculate on things that can’t happen or haven’t happened yet. I like to imagine worlds that don’t exist and then make the rules up as I go along.”

JC: Were you a Hulkamaniac growing up?

BE: “I liked Hulk Hogan a lot, but I never wanted to see him live. The NWA stuff felt more realistic. WWF didn’t run Baltimore city a lot, so I’d have to go to Hershey Park to see them.

I always respected Ric Flair more because Flair wrestled all the time. Hogan wrestled only every 30 days or so, and if he did house shows, most people didn’t know anything about house shows back then. Hogan was kept off the calendar doing movies or promotional material while everyone else was wrestling. But Hogan always delivered at WrestleMania and that’s what mattered most. He delivered when he had to, and he delivered big.”

JC: Who were some of your favorites?

BE: “I was crazy about Savage, Steamboat, Hart Foundation, all the NWA guys. I loved all the workers. Tito Santana was one of the greatest workers of all time and I still think he isn’t given enough credit for what he could do in the ring.

I graduated high school in 1992 and during college I didn’t watch at all. So I missed the birth of ECW, the modern WCW and the horrible days of WWE. I do regret not seeing Bret’s ascension as a single’s star because I was always a fan of the Hart Foundation.

But I got back into it around 1996-1997 and also caught up on the Japanese side, watching everything that was important during the best years of New Japan, All Japan, Zero-1, Pro Wrestling NOAH.”

JC: Are there other wrestlers you’re interested in basing a graphic novel on?

BE: “I would love to do a Randy Savage story. You could do a whole graphic novel just about Randy and Elizabeth—just their behind the scenes marriage and break up. Lion Forge tried to get the life rights to Savage, but for whatever reason, they couldn’t work out a deal with the Poffo family.

Bret’s story is great, but he’s still alive so he can tell it. The Rock has a really great story, particularly before he made it big. But he’s alive and he can tell his own story. Eddie Guerrero would make a great movie. Guerrero and Savage are the two most movie-friendly. They would be two great, goddamn films.”