Host: What's also interesting though, is that I also follow you—Comic Book Click follows you—and those pictures backstage are amazing. But every picture that you have taken with talent, they are smiling ear to ear. You really built a community of friends with the talent. I wonder if a bit of the grind that it's taking you to make Headlocked a household name, whether you share that same respect with those out there on the grind, on the road? Do you share that kind of kinship of the hustle? Putting yourself out there and promoting oneself?
Michael Kingston: That's how it started. I was set up at all these indie shows. That's how I did a story with The Young Bucks. They were like, "We're on the road every week, and we see you at like three-quarters of the shows we're at." So I definitely earned the respect. People would be like, "Yeah, you grind harder than most indie guys." I think that definitely built some respect with talent. Like I said, they've always sort of treated me right. I've been in locker rooms and even the carniest dudes look after me. In 15 years, I've had two bad experiences. I'm not gonna name them, but I've had two people—one was two people and one was one person—that took some money out of my pocket. But for the most part, I've been super, super lucky and I try never to forget that wrestling's always been so good to me.
I was probably the only outside vendor that was ever allowed at ROH [Ring of Honor], across all of their incarnations. When Gabe [Sapolsky] was running it, when Cary [Silkin] was running it, and even when Sinclair was running it—Gary Juster and Joe Koff—I was still selling stuff there. I was the only outside vendor they ever allowed! That stuff means so much to me because I'm a fan of wrestling first and foremost, and I have been since I was 8 years old. To achieve that level of respect with so many creators I respect, that's the juice more than anything else.
If you're in comics to get rich, you're doing it wrong. They'd throw you out of Shark Tank immediately. High overhead, low price point. But I still work a full-time job. I manage a fleet of truck drivers for Target. I work—I mean, I was on the road 32 weekends last year, I'm in the middle of seven projects, I haven't had a day off from my "job job" in three and a half years. I do it every day, Christmas, when I do shows... after the show, I have to go to my hotel and take care of stuff. But I've got to see the world. I got friends everywhere. I'm respected by creators that I respect. I didn't even get on a plane until my late 20s because I grew up poor as shit. By the end of this year, I'm hoping to get booked on a show in Alabama and South Carolina, the only two states I haven't been to, but I'm negotiating bookings for now. Hoping by the end of the year I'll be in all 50 states. I got flown to Australia for Starrcast. I pet koalas with Bret Hart!
Host: I love that sentence so much. No one's got that story but you!
Michael Kingston: Yeah, um...
Host: I know this koala is safer than Bill Goldberg, but so...
Michael Kingston: Well, the fun part about that is we're in the enclosure, and there were four people at a time, so it was me, Bret, his wife, and Chris Masters. I'm petting this koala, and then Bret comes up and he's petting the same koala on the other side. I was like, "Bro, we're like the Hart Foundation of koala petting, right?" Hahaha. How cool is that? At the end of the day, my life is never boring. My favorite band is Gaslight Anthem, and the bassist wrote a pull quote for my book. Chris Bauer is one of my favorite actors—The Wire is one of my favorite shows, and because I work with truck drivers, that second season is my favorite season, and Frank Sobotka was my favorite character. He wrote a foreword to my last book! We're working on a story together for the next one. I would take that over writing Batman, 100 times out of 100.
And then, we raised all that money for Minnesota. No one else is doing that stuff. Obviously, we raised the money, and now there's ICE chants at wrestling shows every time because of that. We made money, the message carries, so I'm trying to put good back into the world. I had a pretty high-profile charity project that got squashed by TKO, it's whatever, with one of the guys. But I'm working on some other charity projects. I'm working on another thing hopefully with Brody, and an animal charity thing I think with [Sean] Waltman. Trying to give back, because I feel like to exist and to enjoy myself while the world is on fire feels kind of unfair. So trying to do what I can to put back into the universe, because the universe has been so good to me.
Host: I think that's a telltale sign of a genuine person. I'm kind of curious as to how the stuff happens for the fundraiser that you started. Is this something that you have an idea and you know immediately to contact, let's say a Brody for something like this, or does he contact you first and say, "Hey listen, we need to do something," how does that come about?
Michael Kingston: So we had done the book, the actual comic, when he was in ROH, and then he wore the shirt. It's really kind of a sad state of affairs, but there's not a lot of people that will put their name on stuff. There might be people that will retweet something or say something, but there's not a lot of people that will put their name on stuff to the degree that Brody will. Believe me, I would have had a ton more charity projects going if I could find somebody other than Brody to put his name on stuff. But Brody's a real one, and I appreciate that. I make my own books so I don't answer to anybody. I was raised by all women, and my grandmother was divorced—I grew up in a small town, that wasn't a thing anybody had. I grew up without a father in my life, my mom was a single mother. I come from a long line of women who don't take shit, and I do my best to honor them by trying to not take shit as well.
So we had the book done, I saw Brody wore the shirt, and shit was going on in LA. The Sam Keith one we did in July for San Diego, I was like, "Yeah, let's do a thing." So we did it, and then I was like, "We should do more," and he's like, "Yeah, I'm down for it." So I hit up Daniel Warren Johnson, and obviously him and Brody are tight, and he was like, "Yeah, let's do it." We actually had the piece done, and we were kind of waiting to put it out. And then when [Renee] Good got shot, it was funny, I was at the airport going to Hawaii for my 25th wedding anniversary trip, and Brody texted me, he goes, "We should probably get this going, huh?" I was like, "Yeah, absolutely."
So we fired it up, and I ran that whole campaign while I was in Hawaii, and also while there was a massive snowstorm in the Northeast that I was dealing with for my truck driving stuff. It blew both of us away how good it was. I literally just sent the last of the books out this week, because there was a whole thing with the printing. My printer messed it up, I drove 30 hours back and forth to Nashville to get my books, and then they were cut wrong, and they weren't gonna be done. So I had to drive back, and they shipped them to me, everything was behind. I ended up packing all those orders individually myself, 100%. I had to cancel shows. The only reason I went to WrestleMania was because I needed Brody to sign those books, because he's working on a new album with his band, and he had a friend die, so we weren't able to connect. But I just got everything mailed out. I assure you that I'm sure I lost a bunch of money doing this, but I would do it 100 times out of 100. I don't care. It was just so much of a bigger undertaking than I ever expected it would be.
Host: Now one thing, in regards to the campaign and everything, obviously we are in tumultuous times, we live in very interesting times, and there's both the good and the bad of things like this going on. How did you react to some of the negative feedback from some people on the internet with the fundraising?
Michael Kingston: Oh I don't care. I don't give a shit, honestly. I think everybody's a person and everybody's got a right to their opinions, however trash opinions they may be. I'm on the road, I've been in half the states in the country this year. I talk to people all the time, I'm very open about my opinions and my political views. I've had political discussions with Kane at shows! I'll mess with them, it's respectful. I'm generally not disrespectful unless somebody says some bigoted shit. I think if you want people to come back—there's a lot of conservative media, it's everywhere, and the answers are very easy, right? "What about the troops, what about our homeless vets, what about our country?" Those answers are very easy if you don't wanna deal with stuff.
So I'm a big white dude. When you have conversations with people, you can make headway, but you can only do it in a one-on-one setting. And it can't be a family member, because there's too much shit there. You're never gonna change a family member's mind. But you also kind of got to be "from the tribe," so to speak. I manage truck drivers, I have lots of conversations with people. I think the best thing you can do is be educated about stuff, know what's what, and be able to counteract the points and show them, "This isn't true, this is a lie." You're not gonna reach everybody, but you can reach some people, and you can at least get them to come back a little bit. Outside of the bigoted stuff, we all kind of want the same things. Everybody thinks that there's a billionaire cabal of pedophiles, but everybody just thinks it's the guys on the other side! As it turns out, we were right, QAnon was right... like whatever!
But you gotta do the work. You can't cut people off, because if somebody starts to have doubts, they gotta have a place to jump. If you leave them isolated out there, they're just gonna stay out there and double down, because their entire existence now hinges on believing this stuff. I try to be respectful, have open dialogue. As a white dude who has respect from some people, I think my words carry weight with some people. You just have to keep doing it. It's a war of attrition. There's bots everywhere, media is owned by millionaires, and the way they frame stuff is garbage. But you just do what you can. I grew up in a small town, I didn't have the best attitudes for a long time, and then I saw differently. If somebody had cut me off when I was a piece of shit 15-year-old, I wouldn't be who I am now. So I try to give everybody as much grace as possible, unless you're saying some bigoted shit, and then I'm gonna clap back on you.
Host: It feels like a lot of that backlash, which I've seen as well when creators take stances, are the extremely online crowd. And you are boots on the ground. You are walking into all these cons, talking to all this talent. Do you think that has helped your view on the world and how not to generalize people, because you've talked to so many people from so many different backgrounds, been to so many states, so many time zones?
Michael Kingston: Yeah, I think a lot of the people who have never been anywhere are afraid of things. It's very easy, if you've never met a Muslim, to be afraid of them because of how people talk about them, how they're portrayed in movies and TV, and all that stuff matters. I managed the housekeeping for a hospital, and I worked with people from all over the world. When you get down to it, we're all the same. We all want the same things, we all just wanna live.
One of the problems, I think more than anything else—and maybe I see outside of this because I was raised by all women—but men aren't big on introspection. America promises that you can be anything that you want if you work hard enough, and at some point in your life, if you look in the mirror, you have to have some explanation for why you're not in the NFL, or you haven't followed your dreams, or you're miserable. It's very easy to blame other people than it is to take any sort of personal accountability for the state that you're in. That's tough. Going away to college definitely helped me see other people's point of views. And social media too. Even me, who was raised by all women, there's things you just don't understand about what it's like to be a woman. I'm friends with a ton of cosplayers and female wrestlers, and they're getting multiple dicks every day in their inbox! If you've never dealt with that, you don't necessarily understand how prevalent it is, because we don't tell those stories. Social media allowed those stories to come out, and if you listen, you can learn a lot about how other people see things.
I just try to put myself in other people's shoes. When everybody turned me down for my books, I could have gotten real bitter and been one of those bitter comics dudes. But I just found a different way to do it. Ultimately, the universe was telling me my book wasn't right for the direct market. I didn't understand that, and I wasn't ready to hear that, but you listen, and the universe is telling you stuff. I got fired from my job in 2019, a place that I had worked for 13 years and made a fortune for, because they brought in a new person who didn't like how I did things. But it was the best thing, because the job I have now is remote, and I can do more shows. I never would have left that job. It's the universe's way of reorienting me. It's hard to see stuff like that in the moment sometimes.
All those different perspectives help me navigate the things I've done, and the upbringing I have and the people I've met. I love meeting people. It's very easy to be on social media and be like, "Oh, I hate people." But I shake hands with all my Uber drivers. I love connecting with people. I travel on my own all the time, so everybody who sits next to me on an airplane is somebody new. I've met so many cool people, nice people. Maybe some of them are serial killers and I don't know them well enough, but I just enjoy it. The world ultimately is a really cool place, and it's hard sometimes when you're stuck in the bubble that prioritizes outrage to see that. I see beautiful stuff, I experience beautiful stuff every week, everywhere I go. Mentally, you have to keep your head from becoming the algorithm.
Host: So we've pretty much had a real serious conversation this time around, and I now feel awkward because I had this plan to do like, this fun question...
Michael Kingston: Oh no, by all means! No, no, let's do it, we can do fun questions.
Host: I just wanted to ask because I see you got a collection going on behind you, and I know we're all into comics, we're into wrestling, we have our collector's urges, things that we're proud of, things that we wanna show off. I wanted to ask you, what do you have in your collection right now that you wish you could just show to everybody that walks into the house?
Michael Kingston: Actually, I just took this down, this is pretty cool. I was at the Survivor Series screwjob here...
Host: Oh wow.
Michael Kingston: So this was signed by Howard Finkel outside the event, but there's my ticket, and this is the inside of the program. Most of what I have is stuff that matters to me. If you look in the back, I got one of the San Diego Brody Lee figures. I grew up in upstate New York, so I knew Brody from the very, very beginning of his career, 2CW. 2CW was one of the most unheralded indie companies that ever existed. I have that there because he was a great... I love that dude man, such a good dude. Not that he wasn't a superstar, but he could have been one of the biggest dudes ever in the history of wrestling if somebody just thought to use him right. Even just his Big Rig gear. He really could promo in a way that people really never got a chance to see. He could have been like the next Steve Austin if they just had him pull up in a truck, get out with his hat on, his shitty wife beater, and just fight people. Such an easy gimmick! Sometimes people don't see people for how they are.
I have a signed Preacher poster up there, I have a Johnny the Homicidal Maniac poster, I have a little Breaking Bad collection over on the right. What else do I have here? I got a little Randy Savage collection over here, just some small stuff. I got some cool art that I get at cons. Over on this wall, I have a Japanese Flash Gordon poster signed by Sam Jones. In one of the weird things—I have a very weird life—I found out that Hulk Hogan died while I was talking to Sam Jones! We were in San Diego just having a conversation, and I got a text like, "Oh, Hulk Hogan died," and he's like, "Oh." That's just one of those weird things that happens. I have a poster from the last 2CW show. I have a signed Stan Lee thing. I have a AAA poster up here, it was Chris Jericho's only appearance in AAA that he signed for me. I have a big Art Adams Fantastic Four thing that has like 1,000 characters on it.
And then I buy a lot of art from kids. If I see a kid selling art at cons. I have some monsters up here. I have a BioShock thing. This was the worst—this artist, the guy next to him didn't show up, so he let his kid set up. So he's doing five-dollar commissions for video game characters. Awesome. I was like, "Yeah, can you do something from BioShock for me?" And he goes, "Do you have any reference? I'm not familiar with that game." And I'm like, "Oh fuck, I feel so old. How are you making me feel old about video games, goddamn!" But he did a great little Big Daddy for me. I try to buy a lot of that stuff.
Up here on my writing desk—which I can't turn my computer around—I have figures from a lot of different wrestlers that I've collaborated with. There's some Lawler stuff, Hurricane, Gangrel, Vampiro, Danhausen, Samoa Joe, Scott Lost. And then I've had one of those odd things, I've had people make figures of me, which is one of the coolest things ever. This thing, if you pull the string on the figure, it's just a Bruce Willis clip with the logo. That was actually made by Sinbodhi, he makes custom LJN figures, but somebody commissioned him to make that for me. Somebody made a Funko of me which is in another room, and I have a bobblehead of me that somebody made. That's the ultimate coolest stuff ever, man. I'm just a guy that makes comics. Every Headlocked book was made in this room. I'm just one dude that operates on a scale that he has no business operating on. I've been beyond lucky to experience the things I've done. If it all ended tomorrow, it was good, man. It was good.
Host: So Peter, I probably talked too much, I was very excited to talk to Mike today, but I don't think you got to ask any questions. What you got anything for us, Peter?
Peter: Yeah, I was gonna say, you've had a who's who in the realm of wrestling do shows with you and do stories with you. Who are some past, present, or future ones that you would love to have gotten, and who are the ones you would love to get now?
Michael Kingston: I've had the craziest—I gotta write a whole book about my missed opportunities. Piper was supposed to do a Tales from the Road story with me. He died six days before we could put it together. I had met him a couple of times at different shows, but we had talked at San Diego Comic-Con, and we were both gonna be at StocktonCon in August, and he literally died six days before the show.
Ultimate Warrior was supposed to paint a cover for me, which is one of the most surreal experiences in my life. Not a lot of people know, but Ultimate Warrior was a painter, and he only painted with a palette knife, and he was amazing. Every wrestler that does art has super imposter syndrome about it, particularly because Jerry [Lawler] is the standard. Bret Hart, I've been trying to get Bret to do something for years, and I think a lot of it was he didn't want to have his art in the same book that Jerry did, but it's different art, Bret's a cartoonist. But Ultimate Warrior was an incredible painter. Just like Jerry, I had sent him a cold email through his art website. One day, it happened to be on my birthday, the Ultimate Warrior called me up! He doesn't know it's my birthday, and he's just like, "Hey Mark, this is the Ultimate Warrior." It's crazy right! He's like, "I don't know if I'm the guy for you, but I just wanted to call you and tell you to stay positive about your project." And I'm like, "Jeez, the Ultimate Warrior called me on my birthday to tell me to stay positive, I feel like I'm 9 years old." While he's telling me to stay positive, he gets into an argument with his kids. "I told you I'll take you to the fucking mall when I get off the phone!" And then he goes, "I'm gonna have to call you back," and hung up. I'm like, "I'm never gonna hear from him again." But 10 minutes later, presumably after he got done tearing his kids a new asshole, he called me back to tell me to stay positive. He sent me an email saying that if it would help me get a publishing deal, I could use his name. It was definitely written by somebody who sues a lot of people: "You are free to say this, but not this." It was a crazy little thing, but obviously, he died not too long after that.
I was supposed to do some comics with Bray Wyatt, and then he got the call to go back, and obviously we're not gonna do that. I was supposed to have Jade [Cargill] in my last book, and then she went to WWE. I was supposed to have [Ricky] Starks in my last book, and he went to WWE. Sometimes that works out though, because I got to do a story with Naomi in place of Jade, and I did a story with [Powerhouse] Hobbs in place of Starks. The Hobbs story is a lot of fun. The Naomi story was super fun, she's a Broadway nerd, so we took "Cell Block Tango" from Chicago and replaced it with adulterous husbands to shady promoters.
Nakamura was gonna do a story for me. I'd met him at ROH, Danielson and Kaz had introduced him to me. That was the year of the Stephen Amell SummerSlam. So I'm backstage at the Barclays Center, waiting for Jerry to come get me, and I look, and there's Nakamura standing there waiting for William Regal to come get him. I was like, "Oh, I guess we're not doing this," haha. Joe Hendry ended up going to WWE sooner than expected. It's tricky. These guys make casual little moves, and it has a giant effect on me. AEW and WWE are like big monsters fighting in the ocean, and I'm just a little dude in a rowboat trying to hold on.
As far as who I'd love to... I'd love to do stuff with just about anybody, if you've got the right story and if you're a fun person. Sometimes I turn down stuff because some people just want to do something to glaze themselves. That's not what I'm about. I wanna do fun, cool, creative stuff. I did a story with Jay White that's "What if Willy Wonka was a wrestling school, not a chocolate factory?" Wrestlers are some of the most creative people I know, and in comics, it's limitless. I'm working on a story with Karrion Kross right now that's really cool. I've got like four or five things set up that I'm trying to get done.
At one point TKO was kind of open to people doing stuff, and I was gonna try to do something with the UpUpDownDown group. I had already done something with Claudio [Castagnoli] and [Adam] Cole, so I was gonna try to do something with [Xavier] Woods and Breeze, and then I don't think they'd be open to that now. Santos Escobar was supposed to be at New York Comic Con with me. We had it all, he was literally looking for flights, when WWE called him back and made a crazy offer that he had to take. He was supposed to be a surprise at my panel, announce a Tales from the Road book, have him sign. Now that he's back out, hopefully, we can make something work. It's a weird life, it's an awesome life.
Host: I'm just kind of admiring it. It's so interesting to me how it happened. People have been saying for a long time, "You should try to talk to Mike Kingston, he's got Headlocked, he does the wrestling, he does the comics." And then life just made it happen. Seeing how you started off with this comic journey and ended up so entrenched in the wrestling business is freaking inspirational, that's awesome.
Michael Kingston: It's weird, because in the same breath, I don't get any cred in comics whatsoever from the direct market folk. I wrote some Boom books when Boom had the license. I co-wrote a story with AJ, I co-wrote a story with Joe, but I brought them to Boom. I kind of get semi-insulted when people write wrestling comics and they don't ask me, because I have an audience outside of the direct market. I had to go to Boom and be like, "Hey listen, I'm friends with a bunch of the roster. You want Samoa Joe to do a story? You want AJ Styles? I can get this stuff done."
There's a little-known fact that me and Bray had done a found-footage story for The Fiend right when the character debuted. It was super cool, and they turned it down. They were like, "Oh, we're not making WWE comics right now." I'm like, "You gotta be kidding me!" Bray was a super sweet guy. Everyone that he's affiliated with is now currently not in WWE, so I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't gonna take a run at that when everybody comes free.
Host: Comics is the perfect place to tell the kind of wild, supernatural stories they were trying to tell. It would have been such a great supplement.
Michael Kingston: The concept was like, Hawaiian shirt Bray, The Fiend was always inside of him directing him into these places. Every time I wrote a story for the WWE comic for Boom, I tried to correct holes in booking. So the idea was that The Fiend had existed in him this whole time and was just putting him into places to weaken him so it could come loose. The reporter figures this out, the lights go off in her apartment, and you just see on the front lawn the two feet and the lantern. It was really eerie, and we were both super into it, but obviously never gonna see the light of day.
I also got hired to write a prequel comic for that Cagefighter movie that Jon Moxley was in. It was basically based on Moxley's character, about how a pro wrestler would have the tools to defeat an MMA fighter. Tom Nguyen, who designs a lot of Ciampa's gear, drew like five pages of it. But then the movie died at the theater because COVID happened, the international and American distributions got split, and they put it up digitally which killed the theater stuff. That would have been a fun one. The whole movie would have been built around Moxley because he chews up every scene that he's in. I've got to do a lot of cool stuff that nobody will ever see.
Host: I've pretty much taken a lot of your time today, and I know you're a very busy man, so thank you for finding a spot for us, my brother. This has been an excellent conversation. If people missed what you were gonna be doing this weekend, we can just let them know where to find you.
Michael Kingston: Free Comic Book Day, Albany New York, Earth World Comics. I'll be there, we have these Brody King tote bags that are super dope, selling for 20 bucks for the West Hill Refugee Welcome Center. John Hebert did an original piece of art of Captain America beating up an ICE agent, that'll be raffled off. I'll have all my books, I write Vampiro: Rockabilly Apocalypse, which has been picked up for TV development. Friday Night Bigfoot, which I do with Gangrel. All my Tales from the Road stuff, Danhausen variants. If you're in the area, I'll be there from 10 to 3. This is how my life is though: my wife's favorite band is Guster, and they're playing three shows in Rhode Island. I'm gone a lot, so I kind of have to do what I can to get her what she wants. So going to the show on Friday in Rhode Island, driving home, doing Free Comic Book Day, driving back three hours to Rhode Island to do the shows on Saturday and Sunday, all while doing my regular job. It's a little crazy all the time, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. Working men in comics, wrestling, I love it.
Host: Thank you for joining us. George, you can find over on Comic Book Click, you listen to the Major Issues podcast. Peter, the Wawa Beaver, you can listen to the Marvelists, be sure to check out our Catholic guilt Daredevil: Born Again recap show. We just had JP Sarro of The Lapsed Fan, who was also the character sensation find of 2026, the Dock Worker in the most recent episode.
George/Peter: Oh nice, that messed me up this week, with Daniel. I think probably not since Oberyn Martell was killed in Game of Thrones has the death of a character affected me so much. I was like, "Oh maybe he shot next to him, he's a squirrel, he's still alive." He did such an incredible job, such a tough role to play to be likable but working for... the nuance that role required. It really bummed me out. His dad would have been proud of him.
Host: I'm watching Sopranos with my mom now, she's on season 6. I'd only known of his son acting as Tony Soprano in the prequel film. I had actually seen his work before this, so I didn't know... I was not aware of your game, sir.
Michael Kingston: He's good. The whole supporting cast honestly is great on that show, and that's really the secret sauce. Even like Buck is super interesting for a guy who's an assassin. They've done a really, really good job. I am really enjoying the season.
Host: Man, we were about to do another 20 minutes on that. Bro, Breaking Bad, I saw the Breaking Bad stuff, we could do another half an hour on Breaking Bad. Let's go! What about the new Godzilla news? If we hadn't talked to you today, Mike—I'm sorry I just call you Mike out of nowhere, we're not that familiar, I apologize. I didn't want to just give someone a nickname out of nowhere.
Michael Kingston: Why would you not call me Mike? That's my name! No, that's cool.
Host: If we hadn't talked to Mike today, we probably would have had to talk about Daredevil, we would have had to talk about the viewership stuff, which was pretty depressing to see throughout the week. But you can catch us next week, which would be right after the Daredevil finale. If you haven't finished it by the time you listen to Kichi, be prepared for some spoilers. And of course, if you're ever interested, coming on whenever you have the time, we love to just talk shit about everything that's going on, shoot the shit about whatever's on TV, whatever we're reading right now. The invite is always open to you to join us, my friend.
Michael Kingston: Oh, this is fun! I'm down for whatever. Hell yeah.
Host: Thank you everyone for joining us today. I appreciate it. If you're listening, thank you for listening, and if you're watching, thank you for watching, and have a wonderful night and or day, whenever you're watching.
