The Dark Crystal: Creation Myths

It’s time once again for our monthly trip through Previews looking for cool, new comics. As usual, we’re focusing on graphic novels, collected volumes, and first issues so that I don’t have to come up with a new way to say, “ Dark Horse Presents is still awesome!” every month. And I’ll continue letting Tom and Carla do the heavy lifting in regards to DC and Marvel’s solicitations.

Also, please feel free to play along in the comments. Tell me what I missed that you’re looking forward to or – if you’re a comics creator – mention your own stuff.

Ape

Puss in Boots Movie Prequel – I don’t care for movie prequel comics as a rule, but swashbuckling cats are awesome in any incarnation. As long as these are fresh gags and not just ones warmed up from Shrek, I expect to enjoy this.

Archaia

Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal: Creation Myths, Book 1 - I just introduced my son to The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth a couple of weeks ago, so this is great timing. He had the same questions about The Dark Crystal‘s world that I always do, so I’m looking forward to seeing Archaia’s take on answering those. Totally feel like the world’s in good hands with this publisher and these creators.

The Sigh - If Archaia’s snagging Marjane Satrapi’s (Persepolis, Chicken With Plums) new book has been reported already, I missed it. I’m surprised that wasn’t bigger news.

Siegfried, Volume 1 – I’ve been meaning to read P Craig Russell’s Ring of the Nibelung adaptation for years, so I think this might be what pushes me to finally do it. It would be fun to read Russell’s and compare it to this version by Alex Alice.

Bone: One-Volume Color Edition

Boom!

Seven Warriors #1 – Francis Manapul draws this story of seven warrior-women who fight to save the king of 6th-century Libya from the armies of the Persian and Byzantine empires.

Betrayal of the Planet of the Apes #1 – I’m absolutely loving Boom’s ongoing Planet of the Apes series, so I expect to also like this mini-series set during the events of the ’68 film and featuring Dr Zaius.

Operation: Iron Cross #1 – Boom’s already got my attention this month, so this WWII spy thriller also stands out.

The first volumes of Stan Lee’s Soldier Zero, Stan Lee’s Starborn, and Stan Lee’s The Traveler - After Graeme’s warm recommendation of Boom’s Stan Lee line, I want to check them out. And at $10 each, these are made for checking.

Peanuts #0 – I’m still curious to know who the creators on this are, but the idea of new Peanuts material is exciting and Boom has a good record for getting this kind of thing right.

Cartoon Books

Bone: The One-Volume 20th Anniversary Slipcased Color Edition - The affordable version I’ve been waiting for. It’s still $150, but that’s money well spent on a book this good-looking.

Dark Horse

House of Night #1 – Ordinarily I wouldn’t be excited by yet another vampire story set at yet another school for supernatural teens. And indeed, I haven’t paid any attention to the series of YA novellas this is based on. It’s Joëlle Jones and Karl Kerschl on the art that sells it.

Uncharted

Avatar: The Last Airbender, Volume 1 – The Promise, Part 1 – Aang’s adventures continue as written by Gene Yang (American Born Chinese).

Brothers of the Spear Archives, Volume 1 - Collecting the back-up stories to Dell’s Tarzan series featuring art by Jesse Marsh and Russ Manning. I haven’t read this stuff, but it’s ’50s jungle adventure, so I imagine that the standard warnings about racist characterizations apply.

Disney Comics and Stories Classic Characters #5: The Phantom Blot – We usually stick to comics in this column, but a Phantom Blot statue warrants an exception.

DC

Uncharted #1 – The treasure-hunting game that most makes me want to buy a PS3 becomes a comic with a Hollow Earth story.

Dynamite

Flash Gordon: Zeitgeist #1 – Dynamite puts their spin on the universe’s greatest space pulp hero.

EC

EC Archives - I know that EC’s been reprinting archive editions of Weird Science and Two-Fisted Tales for a little while now, but this is the first time I’ve noticed their getting a whole Previews page to themselves to advertise it.  Very eye-catching.

Mr Twee Deedle

Fantagraphics

Mr. Twee Diddle: Raggedy Ann’s Sprightly Cousin – The Forgotten Fantasy Masterpieces of Johnny Gruelle – I almost drowned in the amount of praise Fantagraphics poured on Gruelle’s work in the ad, but simply looking at the cover, it appears to be justified.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec, Volume 2: The Mad Scientist/Mummies on Parade – Even if I wasn’t already turned on to the awesomeness of Jacques Tardi’s Belle-Époquian heroine, “Mummies on Parade” would be enough to necessitate this purchase.

Athos in America – Jason returns to The Last Musketeer and includes other Jasony stories like “The Brain That Wouldn’t Virginia Woolf.”

Gumby Comics

Gumby’s Spring Specials Collection – I haven’t read these, but if they’re anything like the Gumby Summer Specials by the same creative team (Bob Burden, Steve Purcell, and Art Adams), they’ll be worth having.

IDW

Jack Avarice is The Courier #1-5 – I like the idea of a mini-series told in weekly installments over a month. That sounds cool and exciting, especially when it’s a spy/voodoo action-adventure thriller thingy.

Rocketeer Adventures, Volume 1 - The anthology about everyone’s favorite jetpack-wearing hero by everyone’s favorite creators is finally collected. I say “finally” like it’s been a huge wait only because it’s felt that way.

Hawken

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Micro-Series #1: Raphael - IDW’s determined to get me back into TMNT again. It’s working.

Godzilla: Goliaths and Gangsters – The Monster Island crime story is collected.

Godzilla: Legends #1 – TMNT isn’t the only IDW license getting a series of spotlight issues. In this one: Anguirus vs Destoroyah.

30 Days of Night: Night Again - The Joe Lansdale/Sam Kieth mini-series gets a collection.

Hawken #1 – IDW’s not going to let Oni and Image have all the Western weirdness with The Sixth Gun and Deadlands. And I can’t think of many artists I’d rather see do this kind of story than Tim Truman.

Shaman’s Tears - It’s been more than a decade since I read this story by Mike Grell, but my memory is that it was one of my favorite of Image’s second wave of creator-owned series. The other being Jerry Ordway’s WildStar, in case anyone wants to reprint that.

Image

Guns and Dinos #1 – I’m rooting for the dinos.

Mudman #1 – Paul Grist has a new superhero comic. That’s all fans of Jack Staff need to know.

Giant-Size Elephantmen #1 – I’ve got some catching up to do on Elephantmen and this inexpensive collection (three issues for $6) looks like a good place to jump back in.

Super Dinosaur

Girls: The Complete Collection – I got into the Luna Brothers’ creepy series late and always meant to go back and read the earlier issues, because it was really very good. It was underrated (the title and the abundance of naked women understandably leading many readers to think it was just about gratuitous nudity), but it’s a serious horror story with an unsettling vibe similar to something by Charles Burns.

Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors, Volume 1 – This collection was difficult to wait for, so I’m glad it’s here.

Reed Gunther, Volume 1 – Same with this one.

Super Dinosaur, Volume 1 – And this one too. Especially this one, ’cause I read the first issue and was immediately anxious to read the next. Fantastic, all-ages fun. Image is going to kill my wallet in November, but I’ll be smiling as I bury its poor, leather corpse.

Marvel

Northanger Abby #1 – Jane Austen’s parody of a gothic romance novel is as sensational as any actual gothic romance novel. I love Janet Lee’s work and am looking forward to this adaptation, but there’s a part of me that wishes Marvel had gone for a Haunted Love/House of Secrets vibe with it.

Six Guns #1 and 2 – It’s too soon to say that Western comics have made a comeback, but I’m really excited that we’re seeing so many of them lately. Even modern ones like this. Andy Diggle seems perfect for it too.

Victor Von Doom #1 – Doom’s early days as illustrated by Becky Cloonan. Thank you, Marvel.

Skaar: King of the Savage Land

Skaar: King of the Savage Land – Ka-Zar vs Son of Hulk, dinosaurs, and some giant robots.

Oni

Salt Water Taffy, Volume 5: Caldera’s Revenge, Part 2 – Jack and Benny continue trying to survive ghost ships and evil whale hunters.

Papercutz

The Smurfs, Volume 9: Gargamel and the Smurfs – I recently read one of Papercutz’ Smurf volumes to see what the fuss is about. I never really enjoyed the cartoon as a kid and I stayed far, far away from the movie, but Peyo’s comics are so well-liked that I got curious. And they’re really good. They remind me of what I loved about Casper when I was a kid: fantastic creatures having adventures in a forest fantasy world and occasionally learning some nice lessons about how to get along with other people. I’m looking forward to reading more.

That’s it for me. What are you looking forward to?

Laura Allred's studio

There’s a list of creators that in my estimation are not interviewed nearly enough, one such example is colorist Laura Allred. You can find several interviews with both Mike and Laura Allred together, but few rarely focus on Laura solely. So I recently crossed my fingers and shot off an email to Laura seeking to do an email interview. Much to my sheer delight, she was game for a discussion of her career as a colorist. Jamie S. Rich, long-time Allred associate and friend of Robot 6, was kind enough to share his perspective on Laura’s body of work, which helped me shape some of the topics covered in this exchange. Obviously, a huge thank you to Laura for giving so selflessly of her time. As someone who enjoyed Art Adams’ Monkeyman and O’Brien years ago, I plan to dig up my box with those issues, just to appreciate Laura’s work on it, given how highly she speaks of it in this interview.

Tim O’Shea: The life of a freelancer is never easy–and in your house, it’s extra challenging as both of you make a living either through one of the independent publishers or work through DC or Marvel. Granted at this point in your career, there is a certain brand and reputation that your work carries, still freelancing is a challenge even for successful folks as yourself. If you don’t mind me asking, how much has your faith served to buoy your spirits when the hardships of freelancing blindside you?

Laura Allred: It seems when we simply try to do our best in all our efforts, everything always seems to work out. We work hard, though Michael refuses to call it working, but we also try to make time for family and friends. So, I’ve found that my secret weapon for hardships is to just crack the whip and we get back on track. I’m only half kidding.

O’Shea: As a married couple, you understandably have a rapport with Mike that is stronger than any you share with other collaborators? When you first started coloring Mike’s art, how did you discuss his color desires for the pages, given that you two see color quite differently due to his colorblindness?

Allred: He started by showing me work he liked. A lot of European books from artists like Moebius and Daniel Torres. I took those influences and found inspirations of my own, and then it was just a matter of finding what we were both happy with. Now it’s mostly second nature. Instinctual.

O’Shea: When selecting to color the work of someone other than Mike, are there certain qualities you seek in the art to consider accepting the assignment?

Allred: It’s almost always been a friend or someone we both are fans of. So it’s easy to find what they are wanting as well as approaching them with what I’d like to try.

O’Shea: I’m always surprised at how some consumers of comics fail to understand the vital role colorists play in storytelling. Not to put you in the awkward position of bragging about yourself, but looking at the before and after of a page–do you see how much an artist’s work benefits or is bolstered by colors?

Allred: Absolutely! I’ve seen a good colorist make a mediocre artist look good. And a subpar colorist destroy a great artist’s work. We feel that the line art should stand on its own and the color should provide an extra dimension. Usually, the simpler the better.

O’Shea: Over the years of coloring art, how has technology helped to make your job either easier or more effective in terms of your technique?

Allred: Oh, it’s like cavemen getting electricity. There are no limits, which can be very tempting at overdoing something. But the time-saving is night and day. I used to water color photocopies of the line art and then have to draw a code on every single individual color. And then it would get sent off for someone else to do the separations. Now, I have cintiq where I color directly on a screen. Zap! It’s done.

O’Shea: With a project like The Golden Plates, how frustrating is it that while it was successful, as noted in this 2009 interview it was “not big enough to sustain us financially given the time needed to do it right. So, we simply have to find time to do it when we can. We’re confident once we manage an efficient schedule that it will pick up steam.” Are you closer to finding the time and managing an efficient schedule? Have you considered producing future installments online first and then publishing?

Allred: To be honest, every day feels less and less likely to complete it. I handle the finances, and we would have to win the lottery or have a bag of cash dropped regularly on our doorstep to complete it. Michael would need to immerse himself in it the way he did with the first three volumes and put off every other aspect of his career to do it right. We literally used up our savings to complete those first three volumes and I was the one who had to tell him he had to stop and find paying work immediately. He spent more time studying and referencing than he ever did actually drawing the book. He knew the kind of scrutiny it would have, as well as the level of respect he had for its audience. We both feel that, completed, it would be a work of such significance, if not curiosity, that would pay for itself over and over again and stay in print. We almost had our house completely paid off and had a nice nest egg from our Marvel Mutant money. To continue would have meant going in debt or looking for financing which we weren’t comfortable doing. But we’re extremely happy with what we did accomplish and haven’t ruled out the possibility of completing it someday.

O’Shea: When a collection like MADMAN ATOMICA! is released which covers a great deal of your respective work and includes “many now out-of-print one-shots, plus a huge pile of extras, pin-ups, and rarities”–what pieces out of the extras and rarities stand out some of your favorite?

Allred: I love it all. I just love the idea that almost 20 years of work is in two huge beautiful books.

O’Shea: In the past, you’ve expressed your admiration for the work of the Hernandez brothers. Given your respect for their work, how enjoyable was it to color Jaime Hernandez for Strange Tales?

Allred: Thrilling. Michael wouldn’t have started making his own comics if it wasn’t for them. He was so excited with the joy of creating in their work and that spilled over on me. In fact, their covers were classic examples of simple flat colors enhancing without distracting from the wonderful line art. A big influence on me. I just colored new Madman strips form all three, Jamie, Beto, and Mario, for the upcoming Madman 20th Anniversary Monster!

O’Shea: Among your other non-AAAPop collaborations, which rank among your favorite assignments?

Allred: LOVED coloring Art Adams’ Monkeyman & O’Brien comics! Love him and his wife Joyce too. He’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met, and his work is as much fun to color as he is to listen to.

O’Shea: Speaking of non-AAAPop work, how do the collaborative dynamics change when you and Mike collaborate on iZombie, a series in which Chris Roberson is the writer?

Allred: Not at all. Except our dearest and oldest friend in the biz, Shelly Bond, throws in her two cents as my editor. I just have more people to please and make changes for in the process. But that rarely happens.

O’Shea: In this 2008 iFanboy interview with you, you noted of the printing process “We’ve never been completely satisfied with any printed work. We’re always looking for ways to make it better.” Do you think you will ever be completely satisfied with your printed work–and does the partial shift to digital comics make quality improvement of your work more or less challenging?

Allred: It’s easier, and we are both currently happier with the final result than ever. We’ve been playing with our process constantly. You can look through the books and see the changes. In fact, we tried at least three specific different ways in iZombie alone to make the colors more organic to Michael’s art work. You’ll see where the printing got quite “muddy” and then we had an epiphany and found the perfect recipe. So simple. It was in front of us all the time. Now I can model Michael’s figures in shadings to his specifications in layers and change and adjust them instantly until we are both happy. And now it prints almost exactly how we see it on the monitors. I think it was around iZombie 6 or 7 when everything finally clicked. And we’ve used the process since in the new Madman stories as well as a Rocketeer 8-pager for a new Rocketeer anthology series.

O’Shea: Given that his career ended long before it should have, not many folks can say they colored Seth Fisher’s art. What do you recall of working with him on Happydale?

Allred: It may be the most difficult project I ever worked on. Seth was still getting his footing. The scans weren’t the best and being such a heavily detailed artist, it was extremely challenging. But the hardest jobs are often the most gratifying, and that was the case when working with Seth Fisher. So sad.

O’Shea: In the 2008 iFanboy interview, you spoke of your affinity for the art of The Wyeths (N.C., Andrew and Jamie). Could you explain if there are certain qualities about each artist that catch your interest, or is it the family’s body of work overall that earns your respect?

Allred: All wonderful, but it’s NC Wyeth that really excites me. His work feels timeless and dreamy. Lush, classic, graphic and artsy all at the same time.

O’Shea: Is there anything about your craft or projects that you’d like to discuss that I neglected to ask you about?

Allred: Nope.

Only that we always want to take every opportunity to encourage people to embrace and dig into the comic book medium as much as possible. There is always something new, special, and unique for anyone to discover.

It’s just not a big X-event without Art Adams, who provides the variant cover to New Mutants #15. That issue kicks off the “Fall of the New Mutants” storyline by Zeb Wells and Leonard Kirk. Here’s how Marvel describes the issue:

The game-changing Fall of the New Mutants begins as Zeb Wells and Leonard Kirk set the fractured New Mutants on a crash course with destiny! A secret military group with a deadly connection to one of the X-Men’s past has Illyana Rasputin in their sights and has no qualms about killing whoever gets in their way. They’re no strangers to severe misfortune, but could this be the end of the New Mutants?

Check out the complete cover after the jump.

*****

New Mutants #15 variant cover

Jurassic Park #1, by Frank Miller

Two months after Frank Miller tweeted “I just drew a really cool dinosaur,” everything finally falls into place with IDW Publishing’s announcement of Jurassic Park: Redemption, a new ongoing series by IDW Senior Editor Bob Schreck and artist Nate Van Dyke.

June’s Issue 1 will feature covers by Frank Miller and Tom Yeates, with subsequent covers in the initial five-issue arc by Yeates with variants by Arthur Adams (#2), Paul Pope (#3), Bernie Wrightson (#4) and Bill Stout (#5). What’s more, IDW will be giving away posters at WonderCon featuring Miller’s cover art.

The series is set 13 years after the events of the first Jurassic Park film, as John Hammond’s now-adult granddaughter Lex Murphy works with the United Nations to keep people off of Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna, while her brother Tim tries to redeem their grandfather’s name.

In addition to the new series, IDW has secured the rights to reprint the Topps Jurassic Park comics from the 1990s in a trade paperback.

Art Adams art for Wizard's piece on Countdown: Arena

If you’ve been within a six-yard radius of a comics blog over the past day or so, you’ve probably read Rich Johnston’s rumor that DC is planning to release a sequel and/or prequels to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s stone-classic superhero landmark, Watchmen. The thinking is that whatever his issues with Moore, and vice versa, former President Paul Levitz kept the kibosh on any further use of the Watchmen world and characters, and that with him gone, Senior Vice President-Executive Editor Dan DiDio is opening the door to such projects.

We can’t speak to the veracity of the rumor — nor will DC, who told Robot 6 the company has no comment. But as an ex-Wizard employee, I can clear up some things regarding one of Johnston’s bits of evidence. He writes:

But there were moves. A Wizard splash showing DC’s Countdown multiverse had Rorschach as one of the combatants and it was rumoured one of the universes in the DC 52 Multiverse was intended to be the Watchmen world.

The piece Johnston’s talking about was done toward the tail end of my time with the company in 2007, during a period when I was working primarily on the website rather than the magazine, but I do know how it went down.

The art and article in question, by Art Adams and Matt Powell respectively, were generated to cover DC’s then-forthcoming Countdown: Arena miniseries, in which characters from around DC’s recently reborn Multiverse, which consisted in large part of Elseworlds-derived worlds, were forced into gladitorial combat against one another. The piece didn’t reflect any inside information of any kind, about the desire to introduce Watchmen‘s world into continuity, creating new projects involving it or anything else (like doing the same for The Dark Knight Returns, say — that’s Frank Miller’s dystopian Batman laying the smackdown on Rorschach, of course). Rather, it was seen internally as a glorified “Last Man Standing,” the long-running Wizard feature in which an original art piece would be commissioned to depict some fantasy battle between characters from different universes, companies or even mediums, and the writer would speculate as to who would come out on top. Such pieces were done without the approval or coordination of the companies involved. Indeed, this was the case with the vast majority of Wizard‘s original art illustrations. (My favorite was one I came up with myself: The Joker and Harley Quinn in the Wolverine and Kitty Pryde roles for a “Days of Future Past” pastiche by Tom Derenick.)

In other words, this was simply Wizard‘s pie-in-the-sky vision of what a battle between a bunch of alternate-reality characters from across the DC line throughout the years might look like. Unfortunately, a line of text labeling it as such got removed from the piece prior to publication for space reasons. When Wizard staffers realized that readers were taking the published piece to indicate that the Watchmen-verse was one of DC’s 52 universes and/or that DC would be publishing new Watchmen-based comics — for which there were no such plans, at least as far as anyone involved with the piece knew — they quickly ran a clarification on the website, which unfortunately is now lost to the the site’s reboots.

Whether or not you ever see Watchmen 2 or Watchmen Year One or any such project, they won’t have anything to do with this two-year-old-and-counting Wizard piece. Still, sweet art, no?

Grendel

The birth of the direct market brought a slew of new independent publishers in the 1980s, including First Comics, Eclipse and Comico. It was the latter that really made an impact on both myself and Strangeways creator Matt Maxwell at the time.

In an email discussion earlier this week about 1980s comics, the subject turned to Comico, and Matt and I started listing some of our favorite series by the publisher. So when I decided to make them the focus of this edition of Six by 6, I reached out to Matt to see if he’d be interested in helping me out this week. “I started expanding my horizons right about the time they started publishing comics,” he told me, a sentiment I can echo. Elementals, in fact, may have been the first non-Marvel/DC comic I ever bought.

So without further ado, here are six great titles (actually seven, if you’ll note how Matt slipped in an extra title in his last entry — sneaky!) that Comico published back in the day.

1. Grendel, written by Matt Wagner, art by Matt Wagner and a host of others: I missed out on the Comico Primer and the very early Grendel material, but I came on board for Devil by the Deed, which was a graphic novel retelling of those stories that came out about the time that the Devil’s Legacy (written by Matt Wagner with art by the Pander Brothers) started up. In short, I was blown away by the range of the themes at play in Wagner’s storytelling (and by the hyper-stylized renderings of the Panders.) The first convention sketch I paid for was a Christine Spar Grendel (right before I got Stephen Bisette to draw Cthulhu). Grendel really was a comic for grownups when such a thing was a comparative rarity. I can’t do it justice in the time I have here, but really, every fan of sequential storytelling owes it to themselves to catch up on this book, which I believe is being reprinted in its entirety by Dark Horse. Romance, treachery, betrayal, crime, noir, science fiction, dark fantasy, even straight superheroics can be found in the pages of Grendel, not to mention an incredible range of formal techniques and experimentation, and work by artists who are both superstars now and all but forgotten, sadly. (Matt Maxwell)

Jonny Quest

2. Jonny Quest, written by Doug Wildey and William Messner-Loebs, art by Marc Hempel, Mark Wheatley, Steve Rude, Doug Wildey, Wendy Pini, Joe Staton and many more: I remember as a kid that the reruns of the Jonny Quest cartoon from the 1960s came on really early, like maybe 6 a.m. early, so it was rare that I was actually awake enough to watch them. But I do remember seeing some of them and thinking how cool they were. In the 1980s, Hanna-Barbera brought the Quest family back, in the form of edited versions of the 1960s cartoons as well as new episodes. It was around that time, I think, that Comico started publishing its Jonny Quest comic. The series started with a bang, as Jonny Quest creator Doug Wildey wrote and drew a story for the first issue, with William Messner-Loebs taking over the reigns from there. Those first few issues featured artwork by a “who’s who” of creators — Tom Yeates, Steve Rude, Adam Kubert, and even covers by Dave Stevens. Eventually Marc Hempel and Mark Wheatley settled in as the art team for the book, which ran for 31 issues (not including a few specials done by Wildey). It was a fun series that stayed true to its cartoon action, adventure and intrigue roots. (JK Parkin)

Ginger Fox

3. Ginger Fox, written by Mike Baron and art by the Pander Brothers: I’ll admit to skipping out on the World of Ginger Fox graphic novel, but the miniseries with art by the Pander Brothers was one of my absolute favorites of the 80s. Like JH Williams, the Panders made every script they drew a hundred times smarter and sharper, and what could have been a forgettable throwaway story set in the glitz of 80s Hollywood becomes a crazed and memorable fourth-wall-breaker. And nobody seems to remember this but me, however, the Pander Brothers had been tapped for a Max Headroom comic that never saw the light of day, but really should have, given the preview art that I’d seen. Scour the dollar bins for these. Can’t miss the photo-covers. (Matt Maxwell)

4. Mage, written and drawn by Matt Wagner: I still remember seeing all the hype around this one. It was around the time I started reading and subscribing to stuff like Comics Buyer’s Guide and Amazing Heroes and other comic-oriented magazines, and I started realizing there was a business and creators and such behind all these comics I loved. Mage was a fairly well-regarded and well-reviewed series by a lot of folks, both reviewers and comic fans alike, and just picking up an issue would tell you why. The Hero Discovered, the first of three planned books in the Mage story, introduced Kevin Matchstick, the reluctant hero who, it would turn out, was the reborn King Arthur. Armed with a magical baseball bat that filled in for Excalibur and guided by Mirth, his Merlin, Matchstick would go on to discover his destiny and fight the forces of evil in the form of the Umbra Sprite. This series and its sequel have both been collected by Image, and hopefully one day soon we’ll get to see the final part of the trilogy. (JK Parkin)

5. Sam and Max: Freelance Police and Gumby Holiday Specials, written by Steve Purcell and Bob Burden, art by Purcell and Art Adams: This is cheating a little bit, since I got into Sam and Max by way of the Epic comics collection of some of the older material. But upon reading those, I made it my business to track down copies of all the Comico material, where it had originally appeared. If you don’t know the wonder of Sam and Max, or worse yet, you can’t enjoy them, then there’s really no hope, is there? They’re the stars of a funny animal book that is often only funny for the wrongest of reasons, where mayhem is always a heartbeat away, and where pain can come from the fuzziest of fists. One of the Gumby specials, with art by Art Adams if memory serves, was also written by Mr. Purcell, and both are light-heartedly deranged stories that should appeal to anyone who has a soul. Is that a wide enough net? I’d love to see the Gumby material get reprinted (and have heard rumors to that effect). The Sam and Max books have been reprinted by Mr. Purcell himself, I believe, and are usually available at shows, and maybe even through Diamond. (Matt Maxwell)

Elementals

6. Elementals, written by Bill Willingham, with art by Willingham and others: I was fairly young when the first issue of Elementals came out, but I can still remember how the cover practically jumped off the shelf when I first saw it. I was a big fan of superheroes, of course, and had been devouring Marvel and DC’s output for years, but here was something that really stood out amidst the patchwork of covers up on that wall at Lone Star Comics. The brightly colored heroes against the stark white background were eye-catching. Of course, it’s what’s inside that counts, and that first issue hooked me pretty early. This book had it all — death, sex, violence, betrayal, vampires, religion, shady government types, larger-than-life supernatural destruction — as well as several great characters the book was built around. In addition to four well-developed main characters — Fathom, Monolith, Vortex and Morningstar –I always thought the villain, Lord Saker, was one of the cooler concepts in villainy at the time. His origins came from Biblical times, as he was raised from the dead by a false prophet, and the separation from God combined with his new-found immortality kind of drove him nuts. And very, very evil. Overall this was a heck of a book and a great introduction for me personally to a new world of comics. It’s a shame it isn’t still in print. (JK Parkin)

Swallow Me Whole

Nate Powell‘s Swallow Me Whole is a graphic novel that demands and warrants repeated readings. Released by Top Shelf last year, the publisher describes it as “a love story carried by rolling fog, terminal illness, hallucination, apophenia, insect armies, secrets held, unshakeable faith, and the search for a master pattern to make sense of one’s unraveling.” My thanks to Powell for this email interview and his level of candor.

Tim O’Shea: What motivated you to start self-publishing mini-comics at the age of 14?

Nate Powell: Well, I’d been drawing comics with a few friends for a couple of years already. We had many issues of a comic series mapped out, and a friend’s uncle suggested that we finish up each issue and self-publish it. We didn’t really know what that entailed, but soon discovered a few neglected copy machines around town and in my dad’s office. We made 100 copies of the first comic, and they all sold in about two months; we’d never anticipated recovering our expenses, or anyone actually BUYING the books, to be honest. We just wanted to have a comic too, and found the most accessible way to make them. At this time I was already into the punk subculture and had been exposed to people who made zines and released records in much the same manner, but it was not until a few years later when I started writing zines and putting out records that I saw the inherent connections between these two realms of DIY entrepreneurship.

O’Shea: How many different languages has Swallow Me Whole been translated into–and how much are you involved in reviewing or approving the foreign editions?

Powell: So far, there are English and Spanish editions available, and there are French, Dutch, and Italian editions on the way in the coming months. Unfortunately, I can only read French (and I’m no master at that), but I do have total trust in Top Shelf to work with strong translators. It’s exciting to see my lettering transposed to different tongues!

O’Shea: How hard was it to tackle an issue like mental illness without allowing it to overwhelm the story?

Powell: Hopefully mental disorders didn’t overwhelm the story because it’s not a story “about” mental disorders—I see the book as being just as centered around aging, dignity, adolescence, death, and personal sovereignty. Having said that, a good degree of caution was certainly exercised to allow the characters’ subjective experiences carry weight and relevance without exploiting the nature of mental disorders for the sake of narrative.

O’Shea: How much, if at all, did your years of experience working with the developmentally disabled influence or inform your approach toward tackling Swallow Me Whole?

Powell: It’s tricky—on one hand, I don’t really see my line of work as directly influencing the book at all, but that’s because I take for granted that I’ve been close to disabilities all my life. My older brother Peyton has autism and some other minor learning disabilities, and I must’ve been twenty or so before I realized just how different my experience of growing up was from most of my friends. My entire perspective on affection, family communication, physical contact, rites of passage, playtime, change, and transition are filtered through this context. I credit my time spent working with folks with disabilities as drawing those experiences to my attention, but I’d give more of the credit to my family life in childhood.

O’Shea: Are there any particular artists that have influenced your sense of layout (use of negative space/lettering style)?

Powell: Chester Brown’s I Never Liked You opened me up to the possibilities of playing with margins, panel density, and space to control pacing and gravity—the early printings of that book had entirely black gutter/margin space which I’d never really seen before, besides in Mike Mignola books. Will Eisner, Lynda Barry, Dylan Horrocks, John Porcellino were all very impactful as well, especially on the lettering tip. As far as layout is concerned, I greatly enjoy making more traditionally structured comics; I feel that more conservative formal boundaries allows for greater experimentation within those boundaries. So I’d also credit Art Adams, Paul Smith, John Romita Jr., Dave Sim, Eric Talbot, and Bill Sienkiewicz for massive influence earlier in life.

O’Shea: How did you find out you were nominated for the LA Times Book Prize?

Powell: The folks at Top Shelf sent me an excited email one day.

O’Shea: How hard is it working on two graphic novels at once, The Silence Of Our Friends and Any Empire?

Powell: It’s not that hard, it just takes pacing, piecemealing, and a little discipline (of which I’m lacking). I tend to be more productive when I have more than one thing going on at once; I just quit my day job, but find that I get less done at the drawing table despite having more time to do it. If I’m able to bounce back and forth between projects, I get less burnout and can actually move through both projects more quickly.

O’Shea: Have you found an increased in interest in your past works, like Please Release–as the accolades for your latest work piled up? Do you think attention for Swallow Me Whole has helped benefit your webcomics at Top Shelf?

Powell: No real increased interest in older books that I’ve noticed, and I’m not actually sure whether or not anyone reads my webcomics anyway. I’m a lover of tangible paper comics and find it hard to look at webcomics, to be honest—there’s something missing without the weight and smell of the paper product. I do have a self-published minicomic version of those web-available stories, and it has sold surprisingly well, so yes is a solid answer.

O’Shea: Given your love of music (as evidenced by your years running Harlan Records) and more recently, your new band Universe–do you ever work out storytelling challenges in your musical pursuits and vice versa?

Powell: Yes, but usually narratives are lent to whatever medium works better. I was in a band from ’92 to 2007 called Soophie Nun Squad that had lots of narrative focus in its songs—we did skits, rock operettes, lots of hip hop narrative, and reflexive song referencing. Soophie was also comprised of many visual and performance artists, so we all leaned on the side of wanting to tell stories. After Soophie, I was a one-person narrative hardcore band called Wait. Wait was an attempt to bridge these two creative sides; I’d yell and play bass with a slide show or flash-card sequence, or a little busted puppetry. A more recent project called Divorce Chord had narrative focus as well, but my new band Universe is intentionally un-narrative, with the exception of one song thus far. Universe covers ground I miss by NOT doing zines and shorter comics so much anymore—the songs are more emotionally raw and immediate, less filtered, and more reactionary at times.

O’Shea: What were the highlights of the LA Times Book Festival for you? What were the dynamics like at the “Problem Child” panel with Laurie Halse Anderson, Suzanne Phillips, and Jacqueline Woodson?

Powell: The panel was absolutely great, and all three other panelists had insightful and relevant things to say. My personal highlight was walking through a doorway only to come face-to-face with Bob Barker. I also ate dozens of genetically modified teeny tiny hobbit squashes.