Comic Book Resources

Talking Comics with Tim: Jamie S. Rich

You Have Killed Me

Back in late July/early August, Robot 6 was fortunate enough to feature independent comics industry veteran writer Jamie S. Rich guest-blogging with the group--partially in promotion of his and artist Joëlle Jones' You Have Killed Me, the 184-page hardboiled crime graphic novel released by Oni Press in mid-July. Rich, an established writer of prose and comics, recently ran circles (in a good way) around some questions I shot his way recently about his latest book. Enjoy, hopefully as much as I did.

Tim O'Shea: Back in 2006 in an interview with Tom Spurgeon you told him (about You Have Killed Me) "12 Reasons was going so well, I think we had only been working on it a couple of months, but I didn't want to lose her to anyone else, so I asked her if she would work with me again and what she would want to do, I'd write her anything. She said she wanted to do hardboiled crime, and since I had the same passion for it she did, I jumped at it, even though it scared me because it was so different from what I'm known for. She's challenging me in incredible ways I would never challenge myself." Can you discuss what ways this story challenged you?

Jamie S. Rich: Well, most immediately, it required some real plotting. Relationship stories like what I had previously been known for don't require as much careful planning, they have a natural flow, peaks and valleys that are tied to the rhythm of real life. It's often unpredictable, less structured, and there is no definite resolution beyond whether or not these people stay together. In a crime story, you have something that happened, and the discovery of how it happened has to be detailed and lead to the revelation of the truth or the punishment of the criminal. You can't just have a random stranger suddenly emerge and say, "Oh, yeah, this homeless drifter did it." I mean, you could, but a lot of people would call you out for cheating, that's not a good story. For You Have Killed Me, I had to concoct a trail for Antonio Mercer, the private detective, to folloq, and each step had to kick up new dirt and I had to keep all of that dirt ordered, even when false or a red herring. There are expectations of that kind of plot. Just as Chekhov said if there is a gun in the first act, it will go off in the third, if you need a gun to go off in the third, you might have to think about having it show up in the first. There is far less left to chance.

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What are you reading?

Labor Days Vol. 2

Welcome once again to What are you reading?, the weekly column where the Robot 6 team runs through what comics and other stuff they've been checking out lately. As Chris is in Bethesda this weekend, I'm filling in for him as your host.

Our special guests this time are Philip Gelatt and Rick Lacy, creators of the Labor Days graphic novels published by Oni Press. Volume two, Just Another Damn Day, is now available in finer retail establishments everywhere. (You can check out a preview here).

See what they've been reading, as well as the rest of the Robot 6 crew, after the jump ...

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Steve Lieber talks Whiteout, research and the secret to drawing good snow

"CulturePulp," by Mike Russell

Mike Russell talks at length with artist Steve Lieber about collaborating with Greg Rucka on Whiteout, the just-released film adaptation -- it didn't fare well at the box office -- and what went into making the 11-year-old Oni Press miniseries: "I was a damned troll under a bridge. [laughs] I was just really unpleasant. I was solving new problems, and rather than feeling satisfied that I was solving new problems, I was getting angry because everything wasn't coming out perfect the first time I put a line down. I would spend 10 hours, 11 hours, 13 hours, 14 hours. I wasn't sleeping right. I wasn't treating myself right. But in the end, one decent page after another was coming off my table -- and it was the first time that I could really say that about my career."

Russell also transforms part of the interview into an entertaining comic.

Straight for the art | Annie Wu's Scott Pilgrim/Venture Bros. mash-up

by Annie Wu

Artist Annie Wu's mash-up of the Venture Bros. and Scott Pilgrim is just one of many pieces of fun artwork you can find on her blog.

Send Us Your Shelf Porn!

Welcome to Send Us Your Shelf Porn, where the collections are shared and the eyes are dazzled. Our guest this week is Steve Flack of Brooklyn, NY. Steve recently moved into a new apartment, and just finished refurbishing it, comics collection and all. He's eager to take us on a tour of the place, so get your guidebooks and click on the link ...

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Straight for the art | Scott Pilgrim poster

The "Scott Pilgrim" cast, by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Bryan Lee O'Malley has unveiled a fantastic poster of the Scott Pilgrim cast -- comic, not movie -- that pays homage to the 1997 flyer for Capcom's Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix.

Jamie S. Rich | From page to page, plan to heist

You Have Killed Me

by Jamie S. Rich, with art by Joëlle Jones

The comic book creative process is a mysterious, fascinating thing to both fans of comics and non-fans alike. People always want to know how a writer/artist team works. What comes first? The images or the words? How much detail does the writer demand in the script? How involved is the artist in plotting?

So, to clear some of this up, I decided to pick a four-page sequence from the middle of You Have Killed Me and show you the script pages side by side with the final art.

When planning a job, there are only a handful of basic steps. We begin with the germ of the idea, which generally gets discussed between Joëlle and I before I move on to Step 2, which is basically laying down notes. I am not a heavy outline guy, nor do I create detailed synopses. Usually I just keep a running computer document full of ideas that I can pull from whenever I need to. That also includes stuff that I might put into my Moleskin and then transfer to the computer. Later notes will usually be put into the script itself, either as a space marker or ahead of the last page I’ve written.

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'Paper Heart' star teams with Paul Maybury for 'post-apocalyptic-type of thing'

Splash Page reports that actress Charlyne Yi, star of the love story/fake docu-drama Paper Heart, is working on a comic book with artist Paul Maybury.

Oni Press will publish it, which Yi says is "about a post-apocalyptic-type of thing where a girl's going to save the world against the devil." She adds that the main character "kind of looks like me, only cooler and stronger and tougher and sexier." You can see the interview with Yi about the book below.

Straight for the art | Another shot of 6th Gun

Promotional art for "6th Gun," by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt

Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt continue to tease their newly announced Oni Press miniseries 6th Gun with this terrific piece created last year "to convey the dark fantasy/high adventure feel of the series." (Follow the link to see the full image.)

Bunn also provides an intriguing pitch for the supernatural Western: "During the darkest days of the Civil War, a band of cutthroats came into possession of six pistols of terrible power. Now, one of the weapons is missing, and the agents of darkness will stop at nothing to get it back."

The full-color miniseries is set to debut in spring 2010.

Jamie S. Rich | My Criminal Record

Hey, everyone! Before I get started, I thought I'd take the time out to give a brief wave and also thank the Robot 6 crew for inviting me to be Robot 7 for a week.

You Have Killed Me

My name is Jamie S. Rich, and I am a crime junkie. Movies are my major poison, particularly of the classic film noir variety. You know, moody black-and-white flicks from the 1940s and 1950s featuring tough guys in nice suits slapping bad guys in even nicer suits all because of something going on with a girl who may or may not be nice, but who cares, because she dresses better than both of the fellas combined. That said, I also like crime comics, and thanks to some gentle urging from my artist, Joëlle Jones, I decided to act on that love and write my own. My week amongst the CBR blogosphere is meant to promote just that--the newly released Oni Press hardcover comic book You Have Killed Me. Written by myself and illustrated by Joëlle, it's got all those things I mentioned above--including the slap!--and more. It's been about two years in the making, and we're excited to be getting it out on the shelves.

I realize that, for many, the idea of me writing a hardboiled crime comic book seems like a departure. I'm known as the goopy romance guy who likes to write dark relationship stories full of references to excellent bands no one has ever heard of. It's a fair reputation, though a limited one, and soon to be shaken all to pieces once You Have Killed Me drops its foot on the collective neck of the reading public. I think followers of my work will be a little surprised that I have more range than they might have expected, but also that what I have done with Joëlle is exactly where my other work has been leading all this time.

Folks would also do well to remember that I spent a decade editing comics, starting at Dark Horse in 1994 at the tender age of 22 and then moving to Oni Press in 1998. In my time, I naturally gravitated to certain crime-related books. I assisted on some comics starring the Shadow, as well as Paul Pope's futuristic con The One-Trick Rip-Off. I was part of the team on the Whiteout books by Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber, one of the more straightforward crime/mystery series you're likely to find in comics, as well as editing Scott Morse's more off-center Volcanic Revolver and Spaghetti Western. I even worked with Ed Brubaker, long before Criminal, serializing stories he and Jason Lutes were doing together and separately in Dark Horse Presents.

What I'm saying is, I have a pedigree. This dog is ready to show!

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Guest blogger: Jamie S. Rich

I'm pleased to welcome writer and editor Jamie S. Rich to Robot 6. Jamie will be blogging about his latest book, sharing his Shelf Porn and generally having fun with us for the next week.

Jamie's latest graphic novel, You Have Killed Me with artist Joëlle Jones, was published by Oni and is out in stores now. Artwork from the book is currently on display at Meltdown Comics in L.A.

He's also written Have You Seen The Horizon Lately?, Love the Way You Love, 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, Cut My Hair and The Everlasting. He also edited titles like Usagi Yojimbo and Red Rocket 7 while at Dark Horse, served as editor-in-chief at Oni and has done freelance editing for titles like Powers and The Atomics. He also edited the next edition of Liberty Comics, which benefits the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. In his spare time, he reviews movies for DVD Talk.

Watch for Jamie's first post later today.

SDCC '09 | What's your iGoogle theme?

Crogan's Vengeance on iGoogle

Kevin previously mentioned the really cool Jim Lee Google logo displayed during Comic-Con, as well as the fact that iGoogle is now sporting many, many cool comic themes. I use iGoogle quite a bit, and shortly after they became available, I changed mine over to the Oni Press theme. It rotates through images from various Oni-published books like Crogan's Vengeance by Chris Schweizer, North World by Lars Brown, Wasteland by Chris Mitten, Blue Monday by Chynna Clugston and Multiple Warheads by Brandon Graham.

There are a lot of other themes out there -- Vertigo, Batman Reborn, Fables, Owly, Spider Woman, Jeffrey Brown ...So did you change yours, and if so, what are you currently displaying?

SDCC '09 | 15 announcements that make us happy

Bone: Quest for the Spark

San Diego Comic-Con is always a wild ride filled with crazy cosplayers, Hollywood hype and just generally somewhat-controlled chaos. In the midst of it all, a few comic book announcements managed to sneak out.

Here are 15 of those announcements (in no particular order) that Kevin Melrose, Chris Mautner and I were happy to hear:

1. New Bone books
So it looks like one of those new books isn't going to be comics but a novel written by Tom Sniegoski and illustrated by Smith. Which is a bit of a bummer, but only a bit. I'm still pretty psyched to see more stories set in that universe and Sniegoski has proven himself to be an able and witty writer on stuff like the Stupid Stupid Rat Creatures mini series, which, by the way, will be included in the Tall Tales book. So yeah, this is great news all around. I'm eager for more Bone. --Chris Mautner

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SDCC '09 | A peek at Bunn and Hurtt's supernatural 6th Gun

From "6th Gun," by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt

I haven't seen any full reports from Thursday's Oni Press panel -- I imagine Comic Book Resource's coverage will appear later today -- but I did catch these tantalizing promotional images for 6th Gun, the just-announced supernatural Western from The Damned team of Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt. (You can see the second image after the break.)

I'm a sucker for supernatural-historical stories, so I'm itching to find out more about 6th Gun.

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SDCC '09 | Scott Pilgrim video game is on the way

Scott Pilgrim

As announced by Oni Press yesterday, and reported by Attack of the Show, Ubisoft is developing a video game based on Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim series.

Described as an old-school, side-scrolling beat-'em-up, the downloadable game will be released next year to coincide with Edgar Wright's movie adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Expect details from Ubisoft next week.

(via /Film)