Rob Reger is creator of Emily the Strange came to life in the early 1990’s and quickly became a beloved counterculture icon all around the world. The complete Emily the Strange, published by Dark Horse Entertainment, made the NY Times bestseller list in 2016. Now Reger and his collaborators are in negotiations to finally produce the Emily the Strange feature with Amazon Studios animation.
Rob: Hey, Jeff.
Jeffery: Hey, you know, we’ve been friends for a while and I know that you’ve been talking with Hollywood for quite some time. How is that going recently? What’s going on with that?
Rob: Well, we have a new partner, Amazon Studios. I like these guys. They are a studio that really wants to make quality programming and movies and entertainment. They are very artist and creator and writer and director driven. They don’t put a lot of emphasis on most of it being authentic to the awesome people they’re working with and I think that’s one of the things that’s driving their success. Anyway, it’s music to my ears that they actually want to make a movie about my character and not use my character to make a movie for some notorious reason.
Jeffery: That would be because you’re character has a struck a nerve with people. Why do you think Emily have such a staining power? What do you think people love about Emily?
Rob: A number of things, but I think maybe in the beginning it was perhaps different than it is even now, but overtime I certainly know that one of the things people appreciate about her is that she’s a character that kind of represent certain things that often we’re all a bit shy to put out there. She stands up for herself; she’s very, very comfortable in her unique way of being. I think that her merchandise in the early days, in beginning the t-shirts and the slogans and stuff on her, you know, different things we made really represented, like, an attitude that the person who wore the shirt or have the notebook or backpack or something– it kind of portrayed the attitude that that person would have wanted or help people get to that voice themselves.
Jeffery: So Emily, she has an attitude that people want to have and so they gravitate towards her because they identified with that what she’s expressing?
Rob: Yeah, I don’t know, it’s a multi faceted or part thing but I would say that’s one of the thing, then also once you kind of start to understand the mystery behind the girl you also just identify with or, you know, I think that everybody has a little bit of that part of them that has at one point in their lives at least felt isolated or alone or that no one truly understand them and with Emily that’s okay. And so I think there’s something about relating to a character that enjoys that part of her, whereas a lot of the stuff, the most difficult part of her life something to come to terms with. So Emily kind of represents it being okay that you’re an outside person.
Jeffery: Yeah, I get that because a lot of people feel that way. I get that.
Rob: The third part to continue on that thought, I think just the darkness of the character and the fact that she has cats is also a big part of it. A lot of people in the early days and now might be drawn to her because they like cats and I use a lot of cats in there imagery and so they might identify with the coolness of the cats or, like, that kind of thing and then kind of get to know Emily afterwards. So I think the cats are sometimes the gateway drug to Emily.
Jeffery: The cats are the gateway drug to Emily. So speaking of cat there was Sylvester the cat and then there was Tweety Bird; people who are listening might not be familiar with Emily yet. There’s the Tweety Bird dynamic from years and decades and decades ago, why do people like Tweety bird when you can pick another historical animated character if you wish, but why do you think people like Tweety Bird or whomever?
