For nearly a decade now, Israel Skelton has helped bring stories to life with the amazingly detailed replicas released by Skelton Crew Studio. From the works of Joe Hill to the enthralling tales of the Hellboy universe, Skelton and a talented team of artists have meticulously made these creative worlds come alive, and we had the great pleasure of catching up with Israel in our latest Q&A feature to discuss his unique line of collectibles, how he met Joe Hill, and much more.
Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions for us, Israel. Skelton Crew Studio has been creating replicas and collectibles based on comic books and other forms of entertainment since 2008. What initially sparked your passion to begin this business?
Israel Skelton: I’ve had the passion long before I had the idea for the business. I’ve been making prop replicas from comic books since I was a kid—Thor’s hammer from a CedarWorks mallet, Wolverine’s claws from a blueberry rake. A lot of credit goes to my mom, who brought home books like Swamp Thing and Iron Man when I was young, maybe four. I was hooked from there.
You’ve collaborated with author Joe Hill to release many replicas based on items from his works, including the recent Reali Key from Locke & Key and the Key to the Candy Cane Gates from NOS4A2. How did you initially start working with Hill and what attracted you to his stories?
Israel Skelton: Joe and I met through a mutual friend at the BangPop! comic convention in Bangor, Maine, just a few weeks before the first Locke & Key hardcover was due out. My buddy had organized the con and he and my wife convinced me to take the replicas that I’d been making for years but really kept to myself up to BangPop! to take up table space and show off some of my creations. (Things like the Ultimate Nulifier, Ant Man’s helmet, Thunderstrike’s mace, pieces like that. You know, what everyone has in their basement...)
Joe came by, we started talking and hit it off, and he asked if I could build the Ghost Key. The roots of the studio, and the idea I could do this for a living, really started there. As for his stories, Joe is an amazing storyteller, and in the case of Locke & Key, Gabriel Rodriguez’s art with his writing is just magic.
How do you decide which specific items and scenes from comic books and novels to bring to life as collectibles?
Israel Skelton: Great question. I really just base it on what I would like to have—that’s my main barometer. Would I like to have (fill in the blank)? If the answer’s yes, I can’t be the only one.
Hulu recently announced a Locke & Key TV series and a NOS4A2 series is in the works at AMC. Would you be open to creating props and replicas for adaptations of Hill’s work if the opportunities arose?
Israel Skelton: Of course, we’d love to! And we’d kill it.
What do you enjoy the most about bringing items from comic books and novels to life as collectibles?
Israel Skelton: I really enjoy the process of taking something from 2D to 3D. It’s super fun and really rewarding when you nail it.
You’ve collaborated with some very talented artists, including C.P. Wilson III. How do you decide which artists to work with to create your collectibles?
Israel Skelton: We’re fans first, so often it’s, “Whose art do we love?” And right now, we’re lucky, because there’s a lot of beautiful art out there. More than that, I’d say we’re even luckier because so many people in the comics industry are just amazing to work with. C.P., for instance, is crazy talented, one of our favorite artists AND someone I’d want by my side in a dance battle.
Do you have any upcoming collectibles that you can tease?
Israel Skelton: We have so many in the pipeline that we’ve announced: a Norgal vinyl from Head Lopper, mini-busts of Mark Millar and Rafael Albuquerque’s Huck, Em Cypress from Revival, and itty bitty Hellboy in Art Baltazar’s too adorable style. I will say that we have a mini-bust coming this summer that NO ONE knows about—the sort of project that will strike when you least expect it—and we have a sculpt and a plush prototype both in motion as of this week with creators we’ve never worked with before that we’re HUGE fans of. We remind ourselves of how lucky we are to be doing this every day.
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To learn more about Skelton Crew Studio, visit them online, and check out some of their work below.
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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