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Calling all members of the Legion of Ska

After two decades, brewery releases comic book

A small Southwest Colorado town, approximately 20 years ago: Three beer-swilling friends decide it’s time to do less consuming and more selling of their hand-crafted, small-batch brews.

Little do they know that by doing so, they put themselves in the crosshairs of Rotguzen, an evil corporation that peddles a high-margin, beer-like substance to the masses.

What ensues is a battle of brew underdogs in sneakers against corporate bigwigs in pinstripes that entails a bowling alley battle, a scooter-riding heroine and a legion of beer lovers.

The story is encapsulated in Tales of the Legion of Ska, Volume 1, a new comic book out from Ska Brewing.

Legion is the first product of its kind from Ska; the company is in the business of making beer – not comics – after all. But it’s been a passion-project goal since the company’s earliest days, explained Ska cofounder Dave Thibodeau. It just took two decades to get around to it.

“The storyboard, or the script, has been written for 19 years, and we finally put it together,” Thibodeau said. “It is kind of a dream come true – just because we’ve been telling the story for 20 years, and every time you tell it, people ask, ‘Where is the comic book?’”

Thibodeau co-founded Ska with Bill Graham in 1995; Matt Vincent partnered with them soon after. Thibodeau said, in the early days, they had a lot of inside jokes they incorporated into the brewery’s marketing, along with nods to ska music culture, comic books and whatever else they deemed funny.

Out of this swirl of creativity, business aspiration and excitement over their new venture – and all against the backdrop of beer drinking – came the idea for a comic that would tell their fledgling company’s origin story. A friend named Brian Stevens helped write it, and over the years, the story solidified into lore.

“We wrote this comic book when we opened in 1995,” Thibodeau said. “We’ve kind of based everything we do off of this completely embellished tale of our existence.”

And while Ska founders never abandoned the idea of turning the story into an actual comic, they got a little distracted with matters like brewing, bottling, marketing, selling their beer and, eventually, growing into a 30,000-barrel-a-year operation.

“The (comic) project was just too grand for us to try to do while brewing beer,” Thibodeau said.

Until now, that is.

Part of Ska’s growth has included a marketing department, and, Thibodeau said, with the added resources, the time had come to buckle down on the project.

Ska tapped the help of Philadelphia marketing agency Red Tettemer O’Connell + Partners and a bunch of friends and made it happen. The comics came off the presses this fall.

Legion is a tongue-in-cheek underdog adventure that weaves bits of Durango culture, Ska history and beer allusions into the plot. Lana Lovibond from Ska’s True Blonde Ale label is the heroine of the story, Pinstripe from Pinstripe Red Ale is the evil head honcho of Rotgutzen and the Legion of Ska refers to all the people who in real life supported the company – from the friends who bought six-packs to the bands that played Ska concerts.

“It’s like a David-versus-Goliath story,” Thibodeau said. “In the end, the little guys prevail.”

And considering that craft brewers now have more than 10 percent of the market share in the United States, Legion does have an element to truth to it. But mostly, the comic is a ridiculous celebration of Ska.

As they like to say around the brewery, Thibodeau noted, “it takes characters to brew beer with character. The comic book is the kind of bringing it all together.”

Thibodeau said Ska fans should keep their eyes peeled for Volume 2.

“It won’t take another 19 years,” he promised.

kklingsporn@durangoherald.com

Get the comic

Ska Brewing’s Tales of the Legion of Ska, Volume 1 will be given away in specially marked 12-packs of Mixed-Up cans and is available with certain orders at www.skabrewing.com.



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