The Jean Grey School for Higher Learning

In a novel use of Twitter, Marvel live-tweeted a class from the curriculum of the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, straight from the pages of Wolverine & The X-Men. Taking part in the class were Headmistress Kitty Pryde, students Genesis, Kid Gladiator, Quentin Quire, Idie Okonkwo, Broo, Rockslide and Anole, and guest lecturer Deathlok.

Warning: Potential spoilers follow.

While much of the class consisted of banter from the students insulting each other and gossiping about campus events, there were a few pieces of information gleaned from the guest lecture in “Future History 101.” After the lecture officially began, Quentin Quire and Rockslide engaged in a debate as to what was different about Headmistress Pryde.

If their tweets are to be believed, Kitty is the character who’s pregnant.

If that weren’t enough, Deathlok used his lecture time to activate his tachyon probability generators and “calculate exact statistical forecasts for all possible future timelines” for each student in the classroom. He began with Idie, who may become the leader of the X-Men or die in the next six weeks at the hands of the new Hellfire Club. Quentin Quire has high probabilities both for being expelled or burning the entire school to the ground. Kid Gladiator has a 45.4 percent chance of fighting valiantly alongside the Avengers, but a 46.8 percent chance of one day fighting against them. The Broodling known as Broo may discover a cure for cancer in the next three years, but during that same amount of time may also murder and consume at least four other students — oh, and the guest lecturer could also tell you which four.

When Deathlok got to Genesis, the next Apocalypse from the pages of Uncanny X-Force, something happened when the cyborg attempted to calculate possible futures. His output was intriguing:

“Fire in the sky… burning… this unit… disabled… dying… X-Men… bleeding…”

“Conclusion: That child will kill us all.”

None of these probabilities was mutually exclusive, and each seemed a likely tease for each character’s future. It’s a shame the “lecture” ended before Deathlok got to the futures of the other students.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic-War

Over the past several years, writer John Jackson Miller has built a loyal base of Star Wars comic book readers, through his work on Dark Horse’s Star Wars comics line. This Wednesday, January 11, marks the release of the first issue in the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic-War five-issue miniseries (a project which teams Miller with artist Andrea Mutti). While I had Miller’s attention in this email interview, I also opted to pick his brain about the realm of circulation and its related implications. Once you’ve read the interview, please be sure to peruse Dark Horse’s preview of the first issue.

Tim O’Shea: What’s the most enjoyable aspect of returning to the Knights of the Old Republic world?

John Jackson Miller: Zayne Carrick is a fun character to write. He was the Jedi student that didn’t make the grade, but who became a hero in spite of those low expectations. Zayne starred in the fifty-issue Knights of the Old Republic series — available in digital and nine TPB collections — and it’s fun to return to him here, where, once again, he’s completely out of his depth. This time, he’s been drafted into the Republic’s war against the armored Mandalorians. Not good — especially if, like Zayne, you’re against killing under any circumstances. That, too, makes it fun to return to telling Zayne stories — he has to think his way out of situations. Brute force is rarely an option for him.

It’s also a nice change of pace from writing about Sith. I’ve been writing the Star Wars: Knight Errant comics and novel for the last couple of years — and also the Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith prose collection due out from Del Rey this July — and while it’s fun to come up with new and interesting ways to depict Sith evil in those series, the Sith aren’t the main enemy in the Knights of the Old Republic-War period. The Mandalorians differ in a lot of ways but most importantly, they’re not evil — they just have a different philosophy that is having serious trouble coexisting with the Republic’s. So that makes for an interesting difference.

I should note that we’ve crafted War so that you don’t have to have read the previous Knights comics — Zayne starts out all on his own, and we learn about the galaxy as he does. We will have some treats for readers of the previous series, but the aim is to make a jumping-on point here.

O’Shea: While the Knights of the Old Republic saga plays out several thousand years before the movies, would you say there are certain elements of the characters and the universe that are still able to tap into the appeal of the movies?

Miller: Oh, sure. Humor is one; Zayne’s master once said he was walking proof that the Force had a sense of humor. Zayne isn’t in a funny situation, at all, but his outlook is such that he’s fun to follow. He’s not intense, like Anakin Skywalker or Kerra Holt (from Knight Errant) — and I think his perpetual underdog status and earnestness recalls a young Luke Skywalker in a lot of ways.

And here again I think we try to convey events of galactic scope, as the movies did. War begins with a battle to try to stop the Mandalorians’ advance on the Republic — but as we’ll see as the story goes on, there’s a much bigger game afoot. So we have that drama playing out as well.

O’Shea: How excited are you that the book is being released digitally as well as in traditional print, allowing your potential audience to seemingly broaden to a wider range?

Miller: I think it’s a good thing. The reach of the comics expanded dramatically during the last decade, with trade paperbacks giving everything a second life; I think the expectation is that digital will become another leg of the table in this decade. Personally, I’m very much committed to the print format — where some house-hunters look for workshop space, I look for a good place for my library. But I think having the additional option for readers is the right thing to do.

O’Shea: You’ve dabbled in the Star Wars universe for a number of years, but still it clearly is a set of characters and worlds you love exploring. Why is that?

Miller: It’s because it’s open-ended, with a lot of opportunities to tell different types of stories. Knight Errant, for example, has given me the chance to explore life under totalitarian rule, and resistance against it. The Lost Tribe of the Sith stories are very nearly a sociological experiment, seeing how a group of Sith stranded on a planet with no technology survives generations without imploding. And Knights of the Old Republic has given us a chance to deal with the Republic more or less intact, but under threat from a different kind of external enemy. So the playing fields are very different and allow for very different kinds of stories to be told.

That said, it’s all Star Wars, whenever it’s set. The big themes of good and evil are always there, they’re just interpreted though different lenses.

O’Shea: I’m impressed with your restraint as a writer, in that you construct a series of pages full of action, but no dialogue or thought balloons of substance. Is that something you would have been comfortable trying earlier in your career–and how good did it feel to be able to do that with this issue?

Miller: I’m a big fan of old comics, but I always thought it was crazy to have long debates raging in the middle of a fight scene between combatants. There’s a place for repartee in a fight scene — we see it a lot certainly in Star Wars, during the escape from the Death Star — but Zayne is very much on his own for a lot of this first issue, so I wanted to let the action flow without getting in the way.

That said, something I did with War that I haven’t done in previous KOTOR comics is that Zayne is our narrator. I made a conscious decision in the previous series not to use a narrator during long stretches, because there were many characters in the story who weren’t what they appeared to be, and I didn’t want an omniscient narrator telling people what was true. But here, Zayne is on his own, and while there are definitely many surprises in the series, we’re discovering them just as Zayne does. So I give the microphone over to him.

O’Shea: Speaking of the art, how quickly were you and artist Andrea Mutti establish a narrative rhythm/rapport? Also, I was really struck by the coloring work of Michael Atiyeh–how satisfying is it when a story fires on all production cylinders (art, inking, color and lettering)?

Miller: Andrea’s work has been great. With any artist it’s just a matter of studying their work and then crafting pages that will play to their strengths. Every artist specializes in different things — the more you can match the story’s staging to an artist’s approach, the better.

And I’m glad you mentioned Michael Atiyeh, who really was a huge part of the success of the Knights of the Old Republic and Knight Errant series — as well as the Mass Effect books we worked on. Colorists are important in helping to maintain a consistent look on a title that has more than one artist, true — but they do so much more. Michael adds to the drama of scenes with his choices, and I try to work in a lot of opportunities in the script where lighting makes a difference. Another Michael, letterer Michael Heisler, is also aboard — he’s lettered just about everything I’ve ever done at Dark Horse, and always adds a lot to the package. And series editor Dave Marshall managed KOTOR and Mass Effect — so this really is a veteran team working together on this.

O’Shea: It’s interesting that the first issue of this project publishes letters about your Knight Errant work. Was it important to you and Dark Horse to reassure fans, in a sense: “I am starting this miniseries, but I am not turning my back on Knight Errant!”

Miller: Yes, I think so. There’s a five-months-on, five-months-off dynamic with some of the series, and in this case we scheduled Knights of the Old Republic – War exactly into the Knight Errant gap. War fits into the slot between Knight Errant-Deluge, just ended, and Knight Errant-Escape, which ships in June and is our best, most impactful story let in that line. So this is a logical place to put those letters.

O’Shea: You are a circulation expert, no doubt, but I am curious do you monitor the numbers on your sales or do you avoid looking at them–and just not worry about month by month sales too much?

Miller: One of the things that I preach on The Comics Chronicles is that while the month-by-month numbers of books that Diamond Comic Distributors ships are interesting, they aren’t the whole picture. And so while I certainly look at the monthly figures, I’m also aware of their limitations: first-month orders are impacted by the shipping calendar, time of year, and the volume of other releases just to name a few. But many more things go into the circulation of a comics story. In the years since the first issue of the original Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series came out, for example, that story has now sold in more trade paperbacks than it did comic books — and the number of comic books is a lot larger than the initial number, too, due to reorders and reprintings. Something else we never see in the Diamond charts is the multiple foreign licensed magazines these stories appear in — and then, of course, there’s digital. So it’s a definite patchwork. I clearly think the monthly numbers are important, given my research work, but I tell people to put a lot more focus on what they say about the market in aggregate. The reach of any individual comics story is a lot farther than current sales charts can capture.

O’Shea: Which characters are you most pleased to get to develop and explore in this new Knights of the Old Republic–War story?

Miller: Dorjander Kace, the Jedi Master who’s volunteered to join the Republic in its war against the Mandalorians, is a character we’ll be seeing a lot more of. One of the big events of this era involves the Jedi renegade Revan rejecting Jedi neutrality and going to war against the Mandalorians; we saw that moment in the original series, and of course the character plays a big role in the later video games and in the just-released Revan novel. Kace is the highest ranking Jedi to go rogue and go to war against the Mandalorians — but as we’ll see, he comes at it from a unique angle.

I also have fun with Zayne’s superior officer, Republic Captain Dallan Morvis, who we introduced back in the original series as a secondary character — rich, entitled, arrogant, and thoroughly unlikable, Morvis hates Zayne’s guts. Which makes him an interesting foil for Zayne. It’s easy to tell a story where the allies like each other; this amps up the conflict.

O’Shea: Is there anything you’d like to discuss (that I neglected to ask you about) or thoughts you’d like to leave with Robot 6 readers?

Miller: I think the intent with the whole Star Wars line is to tell good stories — I think new readers will find that there aren’t many continuity demands in War. Yes, there’s a rich tapestry that we’ve all been working on developing — readers will find lots of moments in the original series that point to things we’re doing here. But we also tell a complete story here that stands on its own. Hopefully, it’s a first step into a wider world, as Obi-Wan once said!

Readers can find out more about the series at the official Dark Horse site and also my own website, where I maintain a behind-the-scenes page for every comic book I’ve ever done. There’s a lot of fun background there. Readers can also follow me on Twitter and catch my comics history work.

Tom Brevoort, photo by Luigi Novi

Let’s not mince words, the online presence of Tom Brevoort has provided hours of great reading for Robot 6 readers. Given his constant and unflagging willingness to interact with consumers via social media, Brevoort is a quote machine (His Twitter bio? “A man constantly on the verge of saying something stupid–for your entertainment!?”). There’s always a directness (some would say bluntness) to his manner online–making him the ideal subject for an interview. Last year saw Marvel promote Brevoort to senior vice president for publishing. 2011 was a year of some major successes for Marvel, as well as a year where some hard business decisions were made. In this interview, conducted in mid-December via email, I tried to cover a great deal of ground (we even briefly discuss DC’s New 52 success)–and Brevoort did not hold back on any of his answers. For that, I am extremely grateful. Like any high profile comics executive, Brevoort has his fans and his critics (and many in between), but I like to think this exchange offers some perspectives everyone can enjoy.

Tim O’Shea: Whether it’s in your job description or not, fan outreach via social media is definitely part of your job–clearly by your own choice. What benefit or enjoyment do you get from interacting with the fans/consumers?

Tom Brevoort: I’m not sure that I get a particular benefit, except maybe just being the center of attention for a few minutes—maybe everything I do is motivated by ego! I’m a whore for the spotlight! But I started doing this kind of outreach back in the formative days of internet fandom, largely because I like the idea of internet fandom. I know that, if the internet had existed when I was a young comic book reader, I’d have been on those message boards and in those chat rooms all the time, obsessively—just like a certain portion of the audience today. So I like the idea of giving back, of being accessible enough that anybody who has a question or a concern knows where to find me, or at least to find somebody with an insider’s track who might have the background and knowledge to speak to their point. In a very real way, it’s all an outgrowth of what Stan Lee did in his letters pages and Bullpen pages. Joe Q, I think, was really the first person to perfect that approach for the internet age. As EIC he was incredibly available to the audience in a myriad of ways. It’s a philosophy that’s very much woven into our DNA at Marvel. And for the most part, our fans are interesting, vibrant, cool people, especially when you meet them in person.

O’Shea: Much has been made of the miniseries cancelled in mid-arc, or announced projects killed, but I am curious to learn how it impacts you to see co-workers being let go in the recent round of belt tightening? When I ask this I don’t necessarily mean on a personal level, per se, but rather in terms of the loss to Marvel’s collective creative/editorial talent, how challenging is it to deliver the best product Marvel can produce when you lose some talented editors?

Brevoort: It’s terrific, I love seeing people let go into one of the worst job markets in recent memory! I’m sorry, Tim, but I don’t think it’s possible to answer this question in anything other than a personal way—or if it is, I’m just not that dispassionate about it. I certainly understand that a business is a business, but there’s also a very human face on all of this. The people who were let go were my co-workers and friends, none of them were dismissed for cause, they’re all great, talented people. But that’s the economic world we find ourselves in right now, and as somebody who has to keep an eye on the business as a business, I understand and accept that. And it definitely means that those of us that remain have to work harder to do the same thing—that’s just simple mathematics. An editor who was once dealing with six projects maybe now has to cope with seven, or eight, at least until we’re through the backlog of material that was initially in the hands of those editors no longer on staff. So it’s definitely a lot to ask—but we’ve got the best crew in the business at Marvel, and though we may all grumble from time to time, everybody steps up to get the job not only done but done with the greatest level of excellence that can be managed. It really is an extraordinary group of dedicated people. And, on the flipside, there’s now some editorial talent out in the marketplace with super-strong skills that any other company could benefit enormously from. So a word to the wise there.

O’Shea: When 2011 began, could you ever have envisioned Marvel having cancelled a miniseries before it even finished?

Brevoort: It’s an unfortunate thing, but yes, I could. I’ve seen it happen in the past, though not quite in the way it happened on All-Winners. And some of that is my doing. We could have gone in at the last minute and tried to hack up the climax of the story, bringing things to a truncated resolution in issue #5. But with three whole issues left to go, I didn’t want to do that. Admittedly, that would have given the readers some kind of resolution, but it would have been a bad and unsatisfying reading experience. So I made the argument that, with so much story still left to tell, we should simply stop. That way, if market conditions improved down the line, and there was enough sustained interest in the project, we might eventually be able to return to it and finish it properly in the future. Hey, the last issue of Ghost Rider that I edited saw print ten years after it was created, so anything’s possible. I’m also a child of the 70s, where books would often be cancelled mid-stream, with no warning and no resolution, so I may be more immunized to this happening than a lot of other people, because I’ve seen it happen before. It stinks, nobody likes it, but again, that’s the marketplace in which we seem to find ourselves. The one thing I know for certain is that putting out issues that lose money is a good way to get to the point where you can’t put out any issues at all.

O’Shea: At the beginning of 2011, you assumed your senior VP role. With almost a year under your belt, I am curious what have you most enjoyed about your increased responsibilities? With your increased executive duties, is there an aspect of your pre-2011 responsibilities that you wish you still had time to do?

Avengers: X-Sanction #1

Brevoort: People, I think, get dazzled by the title, which maybe sounds like a lot more than what it actually entails. I’m still very much doing all of the things I was doing last year, just with a bit more stuff added on top of it. I’m maybe looking at the whole line more, rather than just half of the line. But I’m still directly editing a good number of books—Avengers, New Avengers, Secret Avengers, Fantastic Four, FF, Captain America, Children’s Crusade, X-Sanction, Defenders at least for the first two issues, and a lot more. So there isn’t a whole lot of down time, and there are definitely days when I feel like I could use another me to handle all of the stuff that’s stacked up while I was on the phone talking to a creator or off in a planning meeting of some kind.

O’Shea: While clearly a main focus of 2011 was Fear Itself, what were the other main successes of the past year?

Brevoort: I think we had a bunch of successes this year, and I’m probably going to forget all kinds of things as I run down the list. But certainly the death of the Human Torch and the rebranding of Fantastic Four as FF was a bigger success than we would have imagined. The Death of Ultimate Spider-Man and the introduction of Miles Morales. The “Spider-Island” crossover and just Amazing Spider-Man in general, a series that not only has been garnering all kinds of good fan reaction but has also consistently come out twice a month. Schism, and even more so the relaunching of the core X-titles as Uncanny X-Men and Wolverine & The X-Men. Waid, Rivera and Martin’s Daredevil, probably the best-reviewed title we’ve got right now, Remender and Co’s Uncanny X-Force—I feel like our line is very strong overall right now, even though it’s easy for people to sometimes take that for granted. You take a book like, say, Fraction and Larroca’s Invincible Iron Man, and it comes out like clockwork 12-16 times a year, with the same creative team telling highly-polished stories. After a while, people start to overlook it because it’s so consistent. Also, the steady growth of our digital initiatives. That’s a world that’s going to become steadily more important to us, and to the business in general. We had a couple good movies, too.

Miles Morales

O’Shea: In terms of “the steady growth of our digital initiatives,” what kind of milestones or successes did Marvel see in the steady growth?

Brevoort: I don’t know that there are any specific milestones I can point you to, in that most of our data about the digital world is confidential. But especially in instances where we had mainstream coverage on a particular storyline—Miles Morales, say, or Fantastic Four #600—we saw a pronounced uptick in our digital sales, with each new one besting the sales records of the previous. And all without having a measurable impact on our tangible copy sales. I think that everybody has still only scratched the surface of digital as a delivery platform for the kinds of material that we do, and that it’s only likely to grow further into a cornerstone of our overall publishing business.

O’Shea: You don’t work for DC, but you clearly have an opinion about the other major industry publisher, so I have to ask: Did DC’s 52 perform beyond your expectations, or is their success (still potentially short term, only time will tell) along the lines of what one might expect from a major line relaunch?

Brevoort: I don’t think we have good enough optics yet to predict the long term—we’re only now heading into the period of time wherein retailers can return their unsold copies, so the numbers for those months aren’t finalized yet. But there’s no two ways about it, regardless of how many books they get back, DC did a great job of getting their message out to the world and getting excited readers new, lapsed and existing into the stores to check out what they had going on. I don’t know how, at least judged in those terms, it could have been any more of a success. And I’m very happy about it—not just because we’ve seen an uptick in our sales for those months as well, but because increased competition leads to more excitement and better books. A lot of people have maybe misunderstood my message over these months, and maybe that’s my fault for not getting it across as clearly as I might have. But my biggest complaint and concern for the longest time was that it often felt as though DC had given up the fight, that they were content to just drift along, doing business as usual and not making waves. And a marketplace that Marvel is half of or more isn’t healthy—it puts too much weight on one part of the machine, too much responsibility. So I couldn’t be happier that the new DC team is stepping up to the challenge and hitting the field ready and willing to play the game. And that’ll force us at Marvel to up our game as well. The question now, of course, will be whether and for how long they might be able to maintain that increased readership base.

O’Shea: You recently discussed Marvel’s plans for the 2012 Free Comic Book Day. In reading your Formspring discussion of FCBD, I was left wondering, what is the main goal/point of FCBD to you? And while you think FCBD is being served in 2012 by a reprint, for those who are disappointed, do you understand when they may strongly disagree when you characterize them as potentially “petty”?

Avengers/FCBD 2012

Brevoort: Well, in fairness, I characterized a single question-asker’s question as possibly petty, not the audience as a whole. But as I understand it, Free Comic Book Day is an outreach program that enables local retailers across the country to mount the kind of mainstream promotion and local event that potentially draws new people into the stores. The existing fan base is served by it, sure, but it’s not really aimed at them, but at everybody who doesn’t regularly make the trek out to their local stores. So on that level, I want our FCBD entries to be entry-level friendly—not unsophisticated, but self-explanatory in terms of the story presented. And I want them produced at the highest level of quality possible. But I don’t know that there’s any pressing need for them to be all-new material. Certainly DC’s had no problem with running repurposed material in their FCBD entries the past couple of years. I mean, it’s great to be able to give people an all-new story by our best guys absolutely for free, but we’re talking about an economy in which we had to let a number of people go—it’s an expense that doesn’t recoup itself in any way, and one that isn’t even really necessary in terms of what the goal of the event is. So sure, I’m sorry that our regular readers will have to make do with “only” an Avengers comic written by Brian Bendis and drawn by Bryan Hitch that they may have purchased previously. But, y’know, this even isn’t really about you!

O’Shea: With the news of Brian Bendis of departing the Avengers franchise, after his long and very successful run, it got me wondering. When faced with the prospect of finding a new writer for a successful book like the Avengers, what kind of criteria do you use in your search?

Brevoort: Well, it’s different every time, in that you’re working with a completely different array of variable each time. But to paint the process in broad strokes, you need to assess where the series is at, what’s been strong and working and indispensable about it and what it might be lacking. In other words, and this is pretty obvious, you want to try to maintain the appeal that a book has under its current creative team and then build upon it by accentuating those areas or aspects that haven’t been explored as much. To point to a specific example and provide you some context, when Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch were finishing up their run on Fantastic Four, I needed to line up their successor. In looking at the series as a whole, having come off of JMS and Dwayne McDuffie before them, and Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo before that, I felt like the time was right to try to get a younger voice into the mix—the book had been done by apex talent for a long run, but Fantastic Four is a series that’s got a strong almost gravitic pull towards its past, those initial 100 issues are so seminal. So I wanted to bring in somebody who would have something new to say, and who maybe wouldn’t be as shackled in his thinking to the past. At the same time, I wanted to maintain the overall positive/optimistic flavor that the series has always had when it’s been really clicking, in my opinion. Given those parameters, it didn’t take me long to start speaking with Jonathan Hickman, with whom I was working on Secret Warriors at the time. Jonathan went away, pulled together his ideas, and came back with a strong pitch for the series—and away we went! So it’s very much the same kind of thing on Avengers. Brian is leaving behind a legacy that it’s going to be very difficult for somebody else to equal or surpass, but that’s the challenge of the incumbent. As it happens, I’ve already got the next Avengers writer lined up, though it’ll probably be several months before you all learn who it is—Brian’s still got about a year’s worth of great stories to tell before that switchover happens.

O’Shea: You tapped Hickman to write Fantastic Four partially because he was someone “who maybe wouldn’t be as shackled in his thinking to the past”. Am I right in thinking you also do not mind tapping writers who can partially mine the past and find new story potential, given what a writer like Ed Brubaker has been able to do with James Bucky/Winter Soldier Barnes (as well as some elements of Hickman’s work on Secret Warriors)?

Brevoort: Well, yes, sure. One of the strengths of the Marvel Universe is the conceit that it’s one vast, interconnected place in which all of these stories co-exist, going back to 1961 and beyond. So sometimes you want to take advantage of that fact. But you always need to keep the bigger picture in mind. There have been times in Marvel’s history when whole stories have been written to explain some gaffe in an earlier story—those tend to be “comics about comics” and only of interest to our most hardcore audience. The continuity and the history is meant to be there to service the stories, not the other way around. At times, people at Marvel have lost sight of that. But there’s no problem with mining the past of our characters and our publishing history, so long as the stories that you do with that material are genuine, and have some compelling emotional touch-point for a modern reader who may not have read the earlier stories your tale is based on. In other words, you can do Star Trek II: Wrath Of Khan, but like that film, you need to do so in such a way that an audience member can have a great experience even if they’ve never seen the earlier Star Trek episode that Khan was introduced in.

O’Shea: How do you avoid burnout in your demanding job–how and why are comics still fun for you?

Brevoort: I just love comics. I love the characters, I love the stories, and I love the form. And not just any one style of comics, but all sorts of comics. I still go to the comic store every week like clockwork and drop crazy money on assorted new releases. And while what I do isn’t always easy or always fun—it is a business, after all—I never lose sight of the fact that, in a very real sense, I get to sit around and make up stories about people that fly all day, and then they pay me for it. And that’s pretty great! I also get to collaborate with a broad spectrum of supremely talented people, from our assorted creators through our incredible editorial staff, our promotions guys, online, the film and television folks—just about everybody. So yes, the hours are long and the days can be grueling, and there are those times when things aren’t breaking the way you’d like them to or there’s some difficulty that has to be worked through. It’s a high-pressure situation, keeping this many trains on the tracks every month and getting to their destinations on time. But it’s also a considerable amount of fun. There’s never a better feeling than when the printed copy of an especially good issue comes into the office, and you get to look it over before anybody else.

Fantastic Four #600

O’Shea: The death and return of the Human Torch this year (and the saga that transpired along with it) has clearly resonated with readership. From your standpoint, what is it about series writer Jonathan Hickman’s approach to Marvel’s First Family that enables him to click with readers?

Brevoort: I think that readers are only now starting to get a sense of what Jonathan’s been doing, not just on Fantastic Four but on all of his books, and that is to create long-form stories in which the individual parts all mesh together with mechanical precision to create a much greater whole and a much grander reading experience, one that truly rewards multiple rereadings. In a world of short attention spans, Jonathan is one of the few guys who comes onto a series with years’ worth of concepts, and he’s able to set things up in such a way that events past a certain point continue to build and build and build in a logical way, and then ultimately pay off great. Now that folks can look back at all of Secret Warriors as a whole, it’s easy to see just how much of the overall story Jonathan had in his head when the book began, and how even events in the first teaser short story we did in the Dark Reign: New Nation book fold back into the climax 28 issues and three years later. On Fantastic Four, I just gave him a sense of the kind of thing I was looking for and set him loose, and he came back with a gameplan that we’re only now, almost three years later, getting to the climax of. I think it was beneficial as well that Jonathan had never really been a Fantastic Four reader beforehand, in that he was able to come to the characters and the material fresh, to look over the entire history of the series and figure out for himself what he thought worked best about it without any personal nostalgia coloring his viewpoint. He clearly loves writing the kids, to the point where they would often threaten to take over the series.

O’Shea: This past year also saw Daredevil endure a great deal through Shadowland, as well as Daredevil: Reborn. But when all was said and done, the new Daredevil series by Mark Waid (along with Paola Rivera or Marcos Martin on art) is a major shift in tone that has been embraced by critics and fans equally. How satisfying is it to see Marvel take such a creative shift and pull it off so effectively?

Daredevil #1

Brevoort: It was a gamble to break with the past so severely in terms of the tone and the style of Daredevil, but it’s definitely a gamble that’s paid off big time. And that’s all thanks to the efforts not only of Mark, Paolo and Marcos, but especially those of editor Steve Wacker and his team. For my money, Steve is the solidest line editor in the business today. He’s great to work with, he’s got a strong point of view and a vision for what he does, he thinks about the whole package even beyond just the story and the artwork, and creators love working with him. And maybe it’s just that his sensibilities and mine are similar, but his batting average in terms of the content of his titles has been tremendously good: Avenging Spider-Man, Daredevil, Punisher, Venom, Scarlet Spider—those last three are books that, by all rights, I shouldn’t be enjoying anywhere near as much as I do. And, of course, keeping the juggernaut that is Amazing Spider-Man on the rails and successful both commercially and critically for such a long period of time. Getting back to Daredevil, obviously Marcos Martin is a genius, and Paolo Rivera’s an incredible talent, but it’s especially nice to see somebody like Mark Waid gathering such kudos. Like we were talking about with Invincible Iron Man before, Mark’s been around the industry for so long and has such a track record for producing excellent work that I think it’s easy for people to overlook what he does; “Oh, it’s another good Mark Waid comics again. Yawn.” Whether it’s just ageism or familiarity breeding contempt or whatever, the fact remains that Mark’s been a power hitter of great consistency for two decades now—so it’s very nice to see him getting the sort of attention and praise often reserved for new hot young guys.

O’Shea: We have talked about some of the great writing of Marvel in the past year or so, and while we have briefly touched upon the greatness of Paola Rivera and Marcos Martin’s work, I wonder if you’d like to discuss some of the other artists that really seemed to hit their stride in 2011 (and/or you look forward to knocking it out of the visual park in 2012)?

Brevoort: It’s truly an embarrassment of riches at Marvel in terms of artistic talent, so this is something I could go on about at length, and never run out of material. But focusing more on promising up-and-coming talent, there are three or four creators who seem to really be hitting a stride, beyond the ones we mentioned earlier. Sara Pichelli has been a revelation on Ultimate Spider-Man, her sense of environment and character acting is second to none. Nick Bradshaw harnesses the detail-craziness of an Art Adams around an appealing, bouncy, energetic penciling style. Jerome Opena is a terrific action artist, with a subtlety of line that I’m not sure entirely translates into ink. Ryan Stegman draws great , appealing characters with a lot of bounce, very much in the spirit of Joe Madureira or J Scott Campbell. And there are plenty of others, of course—but that’s a smattering of folks that come to mind this morning.

O’Shea: Looking ahead to 2012, if response is strong enough to the Marvel Season One books, would there be a possibility of pursuing an ongoing series with those creative teams, or is the focus solely on original graphic novels of the characters’ origins?

Brevoort: I wouldn’t rule anything out—every option has been discussed, doing follow-up volumes (“Season Two”) or serialized follow-ups, and every other option in-between. But it’s all a moot question until we can see how people respond to the initial books. At this point, I’ve read the completed Fantastic Four Season One volume front to back, and it is outstanding! I couldn’t be more pleased with it—and I say that having had nothing particular to do with it. All of the credit goes to Roberto Sacasa, David Marquez, Lee Duhig and editor Lauren Sankovitch. These guys understood the mandate of the line and really delivered the goods, in a way that I think will be appreciated by fans old and new. The X-Men Season One book is similarly looking and reading well, based on the 40 or so pages I’ve gone over so far.

Brevoort's Twitter photo

O’Shea: Any closing thoughts you’d like to leave Robot 6 readers with?

Brevoort: I think that my general message for comic book readers of all kinds right this moment would be: relax! It’s so easy to become overly anxious or overly outraged or overly agitated about all sorts of aspects of what we do, the characters we create and the worlds we build. And we love that sort of emotional investment! But keep in mind, these are just stories! It’s all just entertainment! If you’re being entertained, then everything is fine! And if you’re not, try something else! Try something new! Reading comics shouldn’t be a job, and neither should it be a series of existential crises on a month-by-month basis. Also (and I know that this isn’t something that most readers are going to be willing or able to do), stop being so concerned about what’s going to be happening three or six or nine months down the line and try to focus a little bit more on what’s going on right now! Don’t miss the precious moment in the anxiety about what tomorrow will bring! None of what we do is life-threatening, it’s not likely to change the world in any but the most subtle of ways—the drama need not be quite so overblown!

Also, it’d be nice to get into a blog entry headline from time to time for something other than saying something provocative.

The Ray 1

Sometimes when you interview a creator, you get the distinct impression that person would rather be promoting a new film or a new novel, anything but a comic book. Other times you are fortunate enough to talk to a creator like artist Jamal Igle who relishes his craft, loves comic books and is almost as much a booster of his fellow creators as the typical comic book fan. This Wednesday (December 14) marks the release of The Ray 1, the first installment of the four-issue DC miniseries by Igle with the writing team of Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. My thanks to Igle for the email interview. Once you’ve enjoyed this interview, be sure to check out CBR’s late November interview with Palmiotti and Gray, as well as the preview that CBR offered of issue 1.

Tim O’Shea: When the initial 52 DC Books were announced there was a great deal of displeasure voiced about the fact you were not on the list of creators. Two-fold question: How gratifying was it to see your fans support you so vocally on this front. Secondly, without going into details, were you offered a New 52 assignment and passed on it (please feel free to skip the first part and only answer the first part, if you prefer not to delve into it)

Jamal Igle: It was very flattering and humbling at the same time. It was a little difficult for me to respond to all of the inquiries, because I didn’t know, frankly, how to respond.  I was still working on Superman at the time, so I hadn’t been assigned anything. It was a really weird, with all of the assignments being announced, not being able to say anything. The offer for The Ray came just as I was finishing up Superman # 713, prepping #714 and getting ready for San Diego.

O’Shea: Does this mark the first time you have collaborated with the writing team of Palmiotti and Gray? What sold you on joining this miniseries and/or these creators in particular?

Igle: It is, which is really funny because I’ve known Jimmy for something like 14 years. In fact Jimmy and I have worked together as an art time a few times, but never with him as a writer. However, the opportunity of working with Jimmy and Justin was too good to pass up. I’ve read pretty much everything they’ve done from Powergirl, Jonah Hex, Freedom Fighters, The Twilight Experiment, so I knew what they were going to bring to the table. When I got the script, it was so tailor made that I knew I was going to have a blast doing it.

O’Shea: Are there certain aspects of Palmiotti and Gray’s writing that you find serve to compliment your approach to storytelling?

Igle: It’s a very open collaboration. The script is very straightforward, I think that comes from having an experienced artist as part of the writing team. They understand the limitations of the comic book page and what can be done within the page. There’s a clear sense of fun to their stories, particularly with this series. However there’s also such a breakneck pace to the story as well, and so many things thrown in, monsters, aliens, etc. All the things I love to design and rarely get a chance to do.

O’Shea: In a recent CBR interview, Palmiotti praised the dynamic nature of your work on this miniseries. Seeing the first issue preview, I was struck by the kineticism of the Ray’s powers even when he first gains them. How much experimenting with the layout did you do before you realized “hey he should bounce off a car, then off the belly of a plane and then back down to earth” (a great bit BTW)?

Igle: Well, how the actual layout came together just popped into my head as soon as I read the script. The thing about Lucien’s power set, is that in order to fly, he has to ricochet off reflective surfaces. As he’s doing it, he’s making hundreds of calculations in seconds. He can’t stop in mid-air like most fliers can and because he can move at the speed of light, he’s able to cover miles at a time then recalculate where he needs to go. So visually in some panels, it looks fairly random, but it creates such a unique visual effect, one that I’ve rarely seen done in comics.

O’Shea: What do you enjoy more on a project like this: designing the costume and the characters’ powers or building the look of the supporting cast?

Igle: Actually the costume was the last thing I designed. It was more important that we ground Lucien’s world and make it as “real” as possible. Every location is a real location, I went out of my way to get as much reference for San Diego as I could. Everything from the families houses, to the looks of Lucien’s parents, Darius, his girlfriend Chanti. I really went out of my way to design these characters as I saw them in my head as well as maintain the vision Jimmy and Justin had of each character. So all of the action scenes were drawn last, and then once those were done, we designed The Ray costume and went into the high octane stuff.

O’Shea: Can you talk about the benefits of your art being inked by Rich Perrota and colored by Guy Major?

Igle: Well, I’ve worked with Guy before so I had no issues with the coloring. What’s interesting is Rich Perotta. Rich and I worked together on Iron Fist and Wolverine: The Return of Kun Lun for Marvel 11 years ago. We were friends for a long time and lost touch with each other. Then a few years ago I ran into Rich at Heroescon. He had dropped out of comics for a few years and was just getting back into the business and had been doing really well. He was good then but his work has really gotten sharp. He’s an incredibly talented inker.

O’Shea: If response was strong enough to the miniseries, would you be game for an ongoing Ray series?

Igle: Of course I would. It’s a great premise and the characters are so rich. I could see myself having a nice run on The Ray, if it came to fruition.

O’Shea: I admire how much of a fan of comics you are, even after all these years in the industry, a quality that cannot be said about all industry veterans. With that in mind, I was curious which of the new DC 52 you are really enjoying these days (but maybe you think might be getting overlooked in the deluge of new titles)?

Igle: Well there are the obvious one’s Like Action Comics, Batman, Batwoman, Green Lantern and All Star Western (Moritat is kicking ass on that book). I’m also really digging OMAC and I didn’t think I would. I really like Hawk and Dove, Green Lantern Corps, Batwing is good, a very strong character piece. [Peter] Tomasi and [Patrick] Gleason on Batman and Robin was a no brainer for me. The Huntress miniseries is really good, between [Paul] Levitz, Marcus To and John Dell, you have a really good looking, well-written book . The surprises for me were Frankenstein and Swamp Thing. I was never a Swamp Thing fan but Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette are so good on it, and Jeff Lemire is so talented.

O’Shea: Is there anything about The Ray you would like to discuss that I neglected to ask you about? On the flipside, after answering all my queries, are there any questions you’d like to ask Robot 6 readers or a message you’d like to give to them?

Igle: It’s difficult for me to talk about the series without wanting to spoil things, so I hope people pick up the first issue and give it a try. It really has been a labor of love for me, putting the art for this book together. If you dig it, please contact me via Facebook, Twitter and Google+ (I’m easy to find) and let me know.

Scarlet Spider

Say the name “Scarlet Spider” to a longtime Marvel reader and you’re bound to get a range of reactions. But come the new year, Marvel is hoping all the reactions will be positive and numerous when the new Scarlet Spider series launches on January11. As recently confirmed in Marvel’s Point One one-shot, the new Scarlet Spider is none other than Kaine, the Peter Parker clone recently cured during the Spider Island event. Unlike many of Marvel’s series set in New York, Scarlet Spider will enjoy the unique cityscape of Houston, Texas — one of many factors that has me looking forward to reading it. Before the series gets started though, series artist Ryan Stegman stepped away from his drawing table to take part in this Q&A. In addition to this interview, CBR also is offering a preview of the first issue. After reading this (and enjoying the preview), be sure to check out the recent installment of Comic Book Resources’ “Axel-in-Charge,” where Alonso interviewed Stegman.

Tim O’Shea: How did Marvel approach you about joining the Scarlet Spider creative team? Was getting to work with [series writer] Chris Yost a deciding factor in joining the project?

Ryan Stegman: I had been working on an issue of Amazing Spider-Man and I made it clear as I could to editorial that this is the type of stuff I wanted to be doing. I practically begged. And Steve Wacker said that he would love to have me back and but that ASM was booked up artist-wise for the foreseeable future. I couldn’t argue this, because the artists that they have are fantastic. So one day, out of the blue he called me up and told me about this idea and I was sold. No offense to Chris, but that wasn’t a selling point because I think I was hired before him! Chris turned out to be the icing on the cake.

O’Shea: Can you take folks through designing the new costume?

Stegman: I spent a lot of time thinking about it and thinking about it. I really knew that I wanted something very classic, with very few bells and whistles. I wanted it to read instantly and from a distance. I tried some stuff and sent it over to Skottie Young and he told me he hated it. Haha. But he had the same ideas as me for what we were looking for and so he helped me to refine it and really get rid of all the unnecessary crap that I wanted to put on it.

I also thought it was important to get rid of the hoodie because that’s Ben Reilly’s costume. I’ve taken a lot of heat for it, and I understand everyone’s attachment to it. But I want Kaine to be a different character…More edgy and frightening looking.

O’Shea: Are you inking yourself on the book (if not, who is)? You recently tweeted about experimenting with inking with a Cintiq. Are you hoping to eventually work on Cintiq for your pages, or how?

Stegman: No, I am not inking myself. I’ve been working with an inker since I worked on She-Hulks named Mikey Babinski. He’s a friend of mine and we’ve really developed a great working relationship. I have inked myself before, but I don’t have the patience for it! I can only really work in a much scratchier style or I find it to be no fun. So I’m glad to have someone that does that heavy lifting for me.

I do part of my work on the Cintiq. Layouts and I add my perspective digitally, then print that out onto the Marvel board in light blue and draw over it. I don’t foresee a future where I would draw completely digitally. For one thing, I like selling original art! And for another, I just can’t quite get the control that I need to have on it. It’s close, but not quite there yet.

O’Shea: Not every artist goes through Marvel’s Artist’s Training Program (as you recently discussed with Axel). What kind of lessons did you learn from Klaus Janson, for example?

Stegman: I learned so much in those few days! I learned a lot about storytelling and the business in general. But the biggest thing that Klaus imparted on me was to never take storytelling for granted. You need to make active decisions when laying out your pages. I guess before working with Klaus and Howard [Chaykin] I didn’t realize how much one could really get into that aspect and since then I’ve been obsessed. There’s plenty more that I learned, but that’s the most concrete thing.

O’Shea: Scarlet Spider is set in Houston. Creatively, what kind of visual opportunities does playing in a different cityscape provide?

Stegman: I have to study Houston and find out the feel of it. When I draw New York, I have a certain aesthetic that I go for. It’s generally kind of dirty and cramped. But Houston is much more wide open. So I just try to use the right reference and understand the city and hope it gives off the right feel. I am much more in tune with making Houston accurate. New York you can kind of put a bunch of pieces together and it just feels like New York. But with Houston, I’m paying attention to everything, right down to how they paint their crosswalks.

O’Shea: Not suprisingly, you read the Clone Saga in preparation for this new assignment, did it inspire you somewhat with some ideas to work into the present day project?

Stegman: Oh, yes. Chris and I are always firing emails back and forth to each other with ideas that we have. Just the other day I became obsessed with Ben Reilly’s impact webbing and told Chris that I’d love for that to be something that Kaine has. And it might end up being so!

Reading that stuff helps me to really understand Kaine as a character too. I think that now more than ever I realize how much baggage he has. So it really helps put me in the mindset of, “This is not Peter Parker … at all.”

O’Shea: Rather than give everything away, I was wondering if you care to discuss the Scarlet Spider supporting cast in general terms?

Stegman: We will be creating a lot of the supporting cast and villains from scratch. Which could not be more exciting for me. Today I was working on a character and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if he could make fire snakes?” and then I drew it. Because this is his first appearance! Nobody can say no, because nobody knows who the hell he is yet. And stuff like that is SOOOOO liberating artistically.

O’Shea: Looking at some of the pencils that CBR previewed for the project, one asset (among the many) is the unique way you layout the web lines (such as here) and how the Scarlet Spider uses them. I don’t think I’ve seen another artist be so unique with the lines. When and how did you realize that was an aspect you wanted to play with and exploit dynamically?

Stegman: The first time I saw Todd McFarlane draw webbing I knew that I wanted to draw webbing. Haha. It’s so cool. But beyond that, movement and energy are two things that I am very conscious of in my work. And the webbing just provides me with the opportunity to add movement and energy to the art. When done right, it really breathes. Plus, by putting webbing in the foreground you can create a lot of depth and cool compositions. I intend to keep pushing this stuff. I love it.

O’Shea: It’s clear in reading your discussion with Axel that this title has allowed you to challenge yourself creatively, can you talk about the thrill and challenge of that?

Stegman: As I mentioned earlier, the most challenging and rewarding part is that we get to create so much of it. But beyond that, I feel that this book really plays to my strengths and so I am getting to use all of the tools in my toolbox. And at the same time, I’m trying to add new tools. Drawing a spider-character is an interesting challenge in his own right because there are SO MANY poses you can put him in, given his flexibility. So figuring out new and exciting things to do is always fun.

O’Shea: Do you find Twitter to be an easy means to interact with readers?

Stegman: I love Twitter for that. I think back to my 15 year old self and wonder if my head would have exploded if Twitter existed. Because at that age, all I ever wanted to do was hear directly from my favorite creators. But I had to wait until Wizard Magazine came out. Then the internet came along and I would spend all day in the Wizard chat room on AOL and creators would pop in occasionally and it was the greatest.

Now I’m on the other side of that, and getting to talk to readers is the best. I’m a very extroverted person so it’s very unnatural for me to stay at home and work by myself. But Twitter allows me to talk to people and get it out of my system. I’ve even made friends with quite a few readers on there. Now, when I go to conventions, I get approached all the time, “I’m so-and-so from Twitter” and immediately the ice is broken. You know stuff about each other. So conversations get rolling as though we have known each other for a long time.

O’Shea: Were you able to get an Xbox on Black Friday?

Stegman: Haha. YES! I got one online. It should be arriving today, in fact. I honestly have no idea when I’m going to play it though. I have a 9 month old son and a job where I work 7 days a week. But hopefully I can make some time to play the Kinect dance games or something with my wife.

O’Shea: One looking in the rearview question, do you have a favorite scene from your work on Fear Itself: Hulk Vs. Dracula?

Stegman: In issue 2, the spread at the beginning of the issue was a big moment for me. I felt like I really captured the action that I had been going for in my work all along. Like I always wanted massive action scenes, but when I’d finish them they’d never live up to my expectations. But that one totally did. And it was the Hulk smashing monsters. Nothing better than that.

O’Shea: Any questions you’d like to toss out to Robot 6 readers?

Stegman: My question to Robot 6 readers is: Will you buy Scarlet Spider? PLEASE?!!!

Looks like Wizard Magazine/Wizard Entertainment/Wizard World founder Gareb Shamus is taking a more hands-on approach to the internet component of his comics-related empire. After years of communicating with his audience (or at least putting his signature on these communications) solely through press releases, editor’s letters, and the occasional confrontation over unrefunded subscriptions to the now-defunct Wizard magazine with a white Lando Calrissian cosplayer, Shamus has started a blog and opened a Twitter account. Meanwhile, Wizard Magazine’s much-ballyhooed digital incarnation — previously touted by Shamus as “the smartest business decision I’ve ever made” — appears to have disappeared from the Internet.

On Twitter, Shamus is following a dozen people, including Brian Michael Bendis, Jim Lee, Kevin Smith, and Whitney Cummings of the NBC comedy Whitney. So far his only tweet is a retweeted link to an interview with Siggy Flicker, matchmaker and star of VH1′s Why Am I Still Single? (Ironically, perhaps, that last bit reminds me of the weird fake Gareb Shamus twitter account that’s been following virtually all of us ex-Wizard employees for a couple of years now.)

On his blog, Shamus has posted interviews with creators Bill Sienkiewicz, David Mack, Marv Wolfman, Phil Jimenez, Greg Capullo, and Kevin Maguire, as well as his thoughts on chocolate chip cookies. That’s actually a pretty fun line-up.

But Wizard World, the digital magazine that replaced Wizard‘s print iteration after it and sister publication ToyFare were unceremoniously canceled? Nowhere to be found on its dedicated URL WizardWorldDigital.com. And on Wizard’s main site, currently billing itself as the place “Where Pop Fi Comes to Life,” Wizard World‘s death has gone unnoted as well. Perhaps White Lando can direct inquiries about this matter to @gareb.

The Return of the Dapper Men and Hawkeye: Blindspot writer Jim McCann appears to have some news breaking about a new project at the New York Comic Con, and he’s not waiting for the weekend to share artwork from it. He shared the above image on Twitter without any additional hints. So, what could it be? I guess we’ll find out in New York.

Art by Marco Checchetto

This afternoon on Twitter, Marvel Editor Steve Wacker teased two pages of stunning art by Marco Checchetto from “the next Punisher.” Presumably that’s Issue 4, with writer Greg Rucka, which arrives Oct. 12. “Easily one of the best books around,” Wacker wrote. Check out both pages below.

On Monday, Gizmodo intern Alyssa Bereznak briefly took the crown as most despised person on Twitter when she revealed that she was matched up with Jon Finkel on a computer date and rejected him once she learned that he was a former M:TG world champion. This got Bereznak a ton of hate Tweets and Finkel a lot of sympathy on geek and mainstream blogs.

On Wednesday, Dark Horse released The Last Dragon, a truly gorgeous fairy tale-style fantasy illustrated by M:TG artist Rebecca Guay.

And Thursday, IDW Publishing announced it’s teaming up with Hasbro to launch a Magic: The Gathering comic book. It’s not the first M:TG comic (here’s a list), but it is the first in more than 10 years. The series launches with a four-issue miniseries about “a unique, new Planeswalker, a powerful mage with the ability to travel between worlds in the Magic Multiverse,” which of course allows for lots of flexibility when it comes to stories. Game designer Matt Forbeck is writing the comic, and Martín Cóccolo will handle the art. The comic will be available digitally as well as in print, and it will be collected into graphic novels. And naturally —y ou know they had to do this — it comes with “exclusive, playable, alternate-art cards for the MAGIC: THE GATHERING TCG,” in “select issues” of the comic.

Just … if you read it, be sure to mention that in your computer dating profile, or you might be accused of being a stealth geek. On the other hand, that apparently isn’t all bad.

Stormwatch

If you’ve been following along all week, you know the drill — artwork from DC’s September relaunch pops up on Twitter, we post it here for you to peruse. Like the above Stormwatch piece by by Miguel Sepulveda and Allen Passalaqua, featuring a very angry moon, which was posted today by the indispensable David Macho.

Follow along on Twitter at #52splash, and I’ll add any additional artwork I see today after the jump. And if you’d like to see what’s come before, check out my posts from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

*****

Nightwing

Deathstroke

Resurrection Man

The #52splash hash tag on Twitter seems to have slowed down a bit, but David Macho came back once again today with another puzzle, revealing art from the upcoming Resurrection Man series (above).

I don’t have a lot after the jump right now, but I’ll add more as I see them today.

All-Star Western

Superboy by R.B. Silva

Is this Superboy?

Who is this kid?

Tim O’Shea: Laura, how did you come to be involved with Womanthology?

Laura Morley: I’m an aspiring comics writer, and saw the original tweet Renae De Liz sent out in May, seeking women to contribute comics to an anthology for charity. I hadn’t actually crossed paths with Renae back then, and saw the message via someone else’s retweet – I wish I could remember whose, so I could thank them! It’s been an amazing experience for me. Then, since I’m one of those perverse people who gets a kick out of wrangling spreadsheets, I sent an email offering to help out with admin for the project – from that I wound up coordinating the admin effort, which has meant acting as a first point of contact for our contributors and our Kickstarter backers. You can also hear me sounding British on the Womanthology Kickstarter video.

O’Shea: Can you explain how it came to be that there is a hardback anthology and a sketchbook associated with Womanthology?

Morley: Publishing a hardcover volume was the plan from the beginning. The book is going to be pretty hefty – it’s over 300 pages long, on a 9×12 inch format, and we wanted to make something truly elegant that would serve as a good vehicle for the beautiful work inside. The sketchbook came about, I believe, as an opportunity to showcase some more of the work by our creators. Some contributors preferred to draw pinups than full stories, and some wanted to do both; some writers wanted to share samples from their scripts – we thought this would be a good way to get more of it out to the audience it deserves.

O’Shea: How did IDW come to be involved with Womanthology?

Morley: I believe Renae was in touch with some people there via books of hers they’ve published previously; she approached them once the project got under way. We were always keen to attach a major publisher, both to help us get the book distributed widely and to give readers some quality assurance, and we’re very grateful for IDW’s support for the project. Like the rest of us, they’re not making any money off it.

O’Shea: How are editorial duties being divided up on the project–what’s the timeline for the project?

Morley: We have four editors volunteering their time, each handling about 25 writer/artist teams. All scripts were completed and approved in July and pencils were finished last weekend; we have inking, colouring, and lettering work underway right now. We’ll then spend September collating the other material, including interviews and features, and laying out and setting the book. We’re aiming to wrap production at the start of October, so the book can be published in December. The sketchbook should be ready sooner, during the autumn.

O’Shea: This interview would be incomplete if we did not discuss the recent seeming backlash. Have you been surprised at the derision and increasing skepticism that the project has received in recent weeks? Admittedly most criticism acknowledges the planners’ intentions are well-meaning, while at the same time noting that the numbers seem unrealistic.

Morley: I don’t really think it has been derision and increasing skepticism: I think it’s been critical attention, and no, that’s not really a shock, or a bad thing. Of course, some of it’s been rather … full-bodied critical attention, but you’d have to be pretty new to the cut and thrust of the comics internet to be surprised by that. People are entitled to ask questions, and the vast majority have done so respectfully, and out of concerns that are completely laudable (and that, as someone starting out in making comics, I obviously share). I hope we’ve been able to give answers that reflect what we’ve said all along that we’re trying to do– and that underline the point that every single person on the project chose to join it as a volunteer, because we saw in it some reward other than pay. I would like to think that the early success we’ve had – and that’s gone so far beyond what we expected – makes that decision look more like a good one than a bad one.

O’Shea: When you see an analysis from a publisher like Dan Nadel have you considered contacting him to see what advice he might be able to offer? How about talking with Laurenn McCubbin?

Morley: Well, I think people are perfectly entitled to comment on the project without having us turn around and essentially demand “If you’re so smart, why don’t YOU tell us how to run it?” We’ll gladly answer questions, and we’re always happy to get offers of help, but cross-examining each of our critics on how they’d do things instead is probably not the best use of anyone’s time right now.

O’Shea: Editing an anthology is no easy task, has the challenge exceeded your initial expectations or was everyone prepared for the level of challenges inherent with a logistical challenge like this project?

Morley: The editorial and logistical challenges, we were pretty well prepared for: most of our editors also do this professionally, and knew what they were in for. That’s not to say it hasn’t been a huge pile of work – as you can imagine, we’re all pulling very long days to fit this around our paying jobs, and since we’re spread over several timezones it’s fair to say that Womanthology’s been a 24/7 juggernaut for the last few months. We’ve been lucky, though, to have such a dedicated group of contributors, who’ve made those tasks infinitely easier than they might have been. (For example, every single team hit their script and pencilling deadlines.)

Of course, the Kickstarter did far exceed our expectations, and came with more work than I think we’d ever dreamed we would hit. One of my best friends inconveniently got married on the second day of the Kickstarter campaign, and at three a.m. on the night of the wedding you could find me hunched over my netbook, clinging to a single bar of wireless signal on the Welsh coast where the wedding was being held, fielding emails from the over 500 backers we got that weekend. Which… no, that’s not how we’d have planned it!

O’Shea: What is organizers’ response to some folks’ concerns that trying to start an imprint makes the project transition more into a business as opposed to just a charity anthology?

Morley: So as we’ve said, whatever we do with the project, it’ll remain non-profit. Right from day one of the Kickstarter (and as described in the Kickstarter FAQs all along), we’d outlined broad plans for what we’d like to do with extra money if we happened to raise it, and that always included trying to launch more projects along similar lines if the money was available. Anything we are able to get off the ground will work along similar lines to what we’ve done on Womanthology.

O’Shea: Have you all been discouraged by the increased critical eye on the project, or did you expect it on some level, given the successful degree to which the Kickstarter effort raised funds beyond initial expectations?

Morley: No, it’s not discouraging at all: as you suggest, when the project took off so far beyond our expectations, it was inevitable that not all of the attention we got would be from people wanting to shower us with kittens and rainbows. That’s normal, and predictable, and has helped us all I think to get a little bit wiser about what working in comics is like.

O’Shea: As noted in this Portland Press Herald piece, while Renae de Liz is based in Portland, you are based in London. How instrumental has social media been in bringing folks together on this project?

Morley: Actually, I’m 50 miles north of London, in even-more-remote Cambridge! But yes, social media’s been instrumental in this. The whole project got started with a single tweet, which is how most of our creators found us. The efforts of the women running our Twitter, Tumblr, DeviantArt, and Facebook accounts were vital to the success of the Kickstarter campaign, and Twitter in particular has been a major vector for people to find out about the project. It would’ve been totally impossible for this to happen so quickly, and on such a global scale, without these tools.

Related: Comic Book Resources talks with Renae De Liz about the rapid rise of Womanthology

Batman by Greg Capullo

The artists behind this September’s “New 52″ have taken to Twitter, thanks once again to David Macho, revealing a whole lot of art from the new books that are due next month. There are a couple of hash tags to follow over on Twitter … #52splash will show you pages of new stuff from Greg Capullo (above), Scott McDaniel and many others. And as Kiel noted last week, #thenewvillains hash tag that kicked off last week slowed down after last week’s push, but a few new posts have popped up today.

And speaking of villains, I don’t think anyone has shared artwork yet for the villain of the new Justice League title — who it turns out is one of DC’s biggest and baddest, Darkseid.

Check out more artwork after the jump, and watch the hash tags for more!

(Note: I’ll update as I can with additional art).

Animal Man by Travel Foreman

Kid Flash by Andrew Dalhouse

Firestorm by Yildiray Cinar

I, Vampire by Andrea Sorrentino

????? by Rob Liefeld

(Updated per Sterling Gates’ comment below)

Swan by Rob Liefeld

Static by Scott McDaniel and Jonathan Glapion

Birds of Prey by Jesus Saiz

Deathstroke by Joe Bennett, Art Thibert and Jason Wright

Nightwing by Eddy Barrows, JP Mayer and Rod Reis

A crude political comment that’s appeared for most of the day on the Twitter feed of The Hero Initiative has apparently gone unnoticed by most of the charitable organization’s more than 3,000 followers.

The tweet, “America! Stick your dick in the crazy!,” popped up early this morning as part of a tongue-in-cheek meme devoted to potential campaign slogans for Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Republican presidential candidate. Twitter memes aren’t at all uncommon — they appear daily without fail in the “Trends” column — but it’s unusual for an organization reliant on volunteers and donations to wade in with a remark so potentially, or patently, offensive.

Only two of The Hero Initiative’s Twitter followers responded to the comment: One wrote, “Love the cause, not so much the twitter feed,” while the other asked, “Can I get a refund on my 2011 membership?”

It seems likely the tweet wasn’t intended to be sent from The Hero Initiative feed, but instead from the personal account of an organization staff member. If that’s the case, it’s a matter of carelessness rather than poor judgment. However, it remains crude no matter what.

Hero Initiative President Jim McLauchlin didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.

Updated (6:51 p.m. PT): McLauchlin responded in the comments below, explaining, “We had a spam problem over the weekend as well while I was on the road as well. Just saw this, and we have deleted the message. Passwords changed.”

Look, everyone thinks their kid is cute. But we all can't be right. So somebody got the ugly baby.

J. Torres is a pretty prolific comics writer, with credits that include Alison Dare, Lola: A Ghost Story, Wonder Woman, Jinx, and the Degrassi: Extra Credit graphic novels. Now even his Tweets are being turned into comics, thanks to Eric Kim (Love as a Foreign Language). The two are collaborating on Twit, a single-panel gag strip based on Torres’s Twitter feed. There are just three comics up so far, but already a theme has emerged: Torres is the father of a new baby, and that has factored into all three episodes. The humor is pretty good, and Kim’s deft art makes these comics easy on the eye, so stay tuned for more Twitter funnies.

Trailblazer

Anytime I get to talk to Jimmy Palmiotti, we never lack for projects to discuss. I can’t prove it, but I am willing to bet Palmiotti came up with at least two new story ideas while in the midst of this email interview. This Wednesday, July 6, marks the release of Trailblazer, a 48-page full-color western science fiction comic book ($5.99 [Image]) that he co-wrote with Justin Gray and art by Jim Daly. As detailed in this recent CBR release coverage, Trailblazer is “about a hired killer who turns in evidence against an employer for the murder of the woman who raised him. The government must then shield their star informant by enacting Operation Trailblazer, a witness protection program that uses not only location but time travel as well in order to keep their charges safe. As the assassin adjusts to his new life in the old west, he soon finds that no matter when or where he is the future is dead set in coming back to haunt him.” If you buy the book via Comixology, the original script is included as a bonus.

Before discussing this new Image release, we talked a bit about the impressive Jonah Hex 70-issue run (please note, for more scoop on Palmiotti and Gray’s plans for the new All-Star Western series be sure to read CBR’s Jeffrey Renaud’s recent interview with the creators)–not to jump the gun though, as issue 69 goes on sale this Wednesday (with art by Jeff Lemire). Also our discussion delves into the Palmiotti/Gray team reuniting with artist Joseph Michael Linsner on the Claws II (a sequel to Marvel’s Black Cat/Wolverine 2006 team-up) miniseries, which amazingly enough also goes on sale this Wednesday (check out the CBR preview of the first issue). Go into a comic book store this Wednesday, and bottom line, you will have your pick of Palmiotti product to buy. Palmiotti’s passion for comics and his equal commitment to meeting deadlines are two things I’ve always admired about him and that shine through in this interview. As you’ll read at the end of the interview, Palmiotti is curious to know what characters fans would like to see him work on, so please be sure to let him know in the comments section.

Tim O’Shea: You and Jonah Hex have a heck of a future together (with All-Star Western), no doubt. But I really want to talk about how amazing it was that you and Justin successfully told Jonah Hex for 70 issues. How proud are you of that accomplishment?

Jimmy Palmiotti: Very proud…and proud of the excellent work of so many amazing artists along the way. Justin and I would celebrate each and every year we were on Jonah , thinking at any minute it could be the last, but the great crew at D.C. comics always believed in us and believed in our choices and seventy issues is a huge milestone. They believed in us so much that with the new 52 books, they let us continue too do what we do best. In our minds, issue one of All Star Western is another chapter in the characters life and we haven’t missed a beat. The good news is that we are going to have a lot of fun with the other western characters in the D.C. universe.

O’Shea: What were some of the highlights of working on those 70 issues?

Palmiotti: Getting to work with some of my comic book heroes like Jordi Bernet, Eduardo Risso, Darwyn Cooke, Tony DeZungia, J.H. Williams, and so on. as well getting to writ with Justin a series that mostly consisted of done in one stories where there really wasn’t another book doing it at the time with a rotating guest list of artists. Another highlight was getting all 70 of these books out on time the first week of the month for 70 months. That in itself is a record these days…and last , introducing Tallulah Black into the Jonah Hex legacy. Honestly, the whole series was a bunch of highlights for us. In the perfect world we would have continued Jonah Hex and done all star western at the same time.

O’Shea: Will you be marking the final JH issue in any special way, or just focus on telling one good final tale?

Palmiotti: Both, the last issue is something special for a number of reasons that I will not ruin here…but in our eyes, because the book only sold a certain amount of issues, we always thought it would be cancelled any time, so we made sure each and every story being told would be great, since it might have been our last.

O’Shea: As a longtime and established inker/writer, I am always curious how you go about deciding to team with certain artists. For example, why did you choose to work with Jim Daly on Trailblazer?

Palmiotti: I met Jim while hanging out with mutual buddy Tim Bradstreet and we got along well. At the time Justin and I wanted to do this as a book and Jim was available for a really great price and we were happy to have him aboard. Jim is a solid storyteller that doesn’t depend on flash to get the story across and with Trailblazer, we needed someone that understood what we were looking for, and we picked the right man. Jim drew that actual book over five years ago for us…but we had to save up some money to actually pay for the rest of the book and get it published. These things cost a fortune.

O’Shea: How did the Trailblazer project come together–and what prompted you to take it to Image (as opposed to another indy publisher)?

Palmiotti: I have a great relationship with Image comics that has been going on for years and because every cent of our money went into this book, we wanted to retain all the rights…and not share it with a company that doesn’t have our best interests in mind. It’s also a matter of controlling the property after its release. With Image, they let us do what we want, pick when we want it coming out, and the crew there is so helpful, they really are a dream to work with. I think the world of all of them and I wouldn’t bother bringing my work anywhere else unless I actually published it myself. With all the books coming out these days, their line is one of the few aimed at adult comic fans…and that’s an important market to me.

O’Shea: What’s the attraction of mixing the Western genre with time travel?

Palmiotti: What’s not to like? We love genre mashing and it always makes for an interesting story. We have had this idea in our heads for over eight years now, so its good to see it actually get out there. This book was originally a screenplay first. One of the first we wrote.

O’Shea: Given that Trailblazer is based on one of the first screenplays you and Justin wrote I was wondering if you needed to revise it some (given how much writing experience you’ve had since your earlier writing days)?

Palmiotti: We wrote the comic to be a comic and it’s quite different in parts compared to the screenplay. Things that work in a comic don’t always work in a film and I am happy with the differences. Anyone that has worked in both understands this and has to take that into consideration when adapting any kind of work.

O’Shea: With Claws II, you get to reteam with Joseph Michael Linsner–and also get to reteam Black Cat and Wolverine. Traditionally most times, it would not seem that those two characters paths would not cross. But for you as a writer what’s the benefit of playing with the dynamics of these two characters?

Palmiotti: I think they are both at a time in the characters lives where they understand the different between work and play and we have kept that tradition alive in this second series. There is a huge amount of flirtation and we have written to Joe’s strengths in this series by introducing not only the sexiness of the characters, but also involving Killraven and his band of resistance players. Joe has out done himself on these books and don’t be surprised to see them sell out in the first week. They really are beautiful to behold.

O’Shea: Given the variety of stories you are creating in a given month, how stressful is it to try to keep the creative output of a standard that pleases you, while still keeping your sanity?

Palmiotti: The stressful part comes when the actual script leaves my hands. There are scores of people out there … artists, colorists and even editors that think I worry too much about the product…but my argument is that although a ton of comics come out each month … anything I work on has to have a certain level of professional quality to it. I feel for the people spending their hard earned money on these books and think we have to give them the best work we can each and every time out of the gate. It drives me crazy when creators are dismissive about the work and even worse when the people in charge forget that these are projects of passion. Justin and Amanda [Conner] will tell you that I can lose my mind from time to time, but I take it out on myself, not others. I treat every job like its my last and there is a price to pay for that … and my sanity can be that price…lol.

O’Shea: While clearly in demand at DC and Marvel, how important is it to you to always keep a hand in creator-owned projects?

Palmiotti: I love the big two comic companies. I have a ton of history with the characters and the people there and respect that…but honestly, I shouldn’t be called a creator if I am not doing my own thing and creating new characters. The drive to do this can be costly, but at the end of the day I think I am where I am now because I step out of the safe zone and take risks. Take for example, There would have never been a Marvel Knights deal if Joe and I didn’t start Event comics where we published our own work. Things like this make you realize that although it’s great working for the big two…when you own a character you control everything and they become your baby. It’s an amazing feeling of independence that comes along with it and I know in the end, I will be remembered for my characters long before a run on an established character. I hope…lol.

O’Shea: Any questions you want to ask your Robot 6 fans?

Palmiotti: I would like to know what books they think I would do a good job on … from any company. I am interested to see what they say… and if they would like to speak to me, one on one, hit me up on twitter at @jpalmiotti … or find the Paperfilms page on Facebook.

Borders

Retailing | Bankrupt bookseller Borders Group said in court papers filed Friday that it will name a stalking-horse bidder by July 1, with an eye toward completing the sale of all of its assets by the end of July. The Detroit News spotlights the two private-equity firms that have placed bids to buy at least a majority of the book chain’s 416 remaining stores: Phoenix-based Najafi Cos., which owns the Book of the Month Club, Columbia House and BMG; and Los Angeles-based Gores Group — the likely stalking-horse bidder — whose investments include Alliance Entertainment and Westwood One. [Reuters, The Detroit News]

Legal | Peanutweeter, a blog that combined frames from Charles Schulz’s Peanuts strips with real, out-of-context tweets, has been taken down by Tumblr as the result of a Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint from Iconix Brand Group, which acquired a majority stake in the Peanuts assets last year. One blogger, however, argues the blog should be considered fair use. [RIPeanutweeter, Boing Boing]

Retailing | David Ranii looks at how some North Carolina comic stores are weathering the recession. [The Charlotte Observer]

Geoff Johns

Creators | The Detroit Free Press profiles native son Geoff Johns. [Detroit Free Press]

Creators | Heath McCoy profiles artist, and Calgary native, Fiona Staples ahead of her Joe Shuster Awards win: “So many (artists) get disappointed, because they really wanted to work at Marvel or draw Batman or that sort of thing, and that only happens for a fraction of them. It’s not the most practical goal … You sort of get tunnel vision fixating on these things … My goals are just set in terms of the level I want my art to be at.” [Calgary Herald]

Comics | BBC News Scotland spotlights Spirit of Hope comic produced by the U.K. nonprofit group Comic Book Alliance to benefit earthquake victims in Japan and New Zealand. [BBC News]

Comics | Roger W. Rautio Jr. of Canton, Ohio New York, hopes to establish a permanent Comic Book Hall of Fame. He just needs money and a location. [Watertown Daily Times]

Broadway | Julie Taymor, who was fired in March as director of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, is alarmed that the producers consulted focus groups for their overhaul of the $70-million musical: “Shakespeare would have been appalled. Forget about it. It would be impossible to have these works come out because there’s always something that people don’t like.” [The New York Times]

Borders

Retailing | Borders Group, the second-largest book chain in the United States, reported a loss of $132.3 million in April, its second full month in bankruptcy. That figure follows on the $52.6 million loss reported in February and March as the bookseller sought Chapter 11 protection and began liquidating 226 locations. [Detroit Free Press]

Publishing | Ira Rubenstein, executive vice president of Marvel’s Global Digital Media Group, has left the company to become executive vice president of digital marketing for 20th Century Fox. He begins the new job in Los Angeles on Monday. Rubenstein joined Marvel in 2008 after 12 years at Sony, and oversaw the launch of the publisher’s digital subscription service. His departure comes less than two weeks after news surfaced that Ron Perazza is resigning as DC Entertainment’s vice president of online. [Variety]

Publishing | Ada Price surveys the graphic novel exhibitors at this year’s BookExpo America, which opens today in New York City. [Publishers Weekly]

Publishing | Publishers Group West will be the book market distributor for Archaia Entertainment beginning June 20. [press release]

Phoenix Comicon

Conventions | Brad Hamilton and Benjamin Leatherman preview Phoenix Comicon, which kicks off Thursday at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. [Modern Times, Phoenix New Times]

Conventions | Jason Baxter wraps up Saturday’s 10th annual Olympia Comics Festival. [Weekly Volcano]

Creators | Roger Langridge discusses his work on Marvel’s Thor: The Mighty Avenger and BOOM! Studios’ The Muppet Show. “It’s not like I have a lot of affection for the original material,” he says of Thor. “Being allowed to play with those toys wasn’t really the attraction for me. I was interested in being given a superhero concept to play with and seeing if I could push myself to do that. I wanted to see if I had it in me to make something that works within those parameters.” [The New Zealand Herald]

Creators | Gail Simone chats briefly about superhero comics, Women in Refrigerators, Twitter, and considering a relocation to Asheville, North Carolina. [Mountain Xpress]

Comics | Fans weigh in on the cycle of death and resurrection in superhero comics: “”It’s daytime drama for guys. It’s accepted that death isn’t permanent.” [The Capital]

Archie & Friends 156

My friendship and association with Alex Segura dates back to late 2004 when he invited me to join Robot 6‘s ancestor blog (or however you want to call its relation) The Great Curve. I wear my bias on my sleeve for this interview–I’ve always been a supporter of Segura’s work–be it years at DC Comics, or more recently, his current role as Executive Director of Publicity and Marketing at Archie Comics. In addition to discussing what he’s accomplished to date at Archie (and hopes to achieve in the near to long term), we delve into his own writing and musical pursuits (in the band, The Faulkner Detectives).

Tim O’Shea: Before your first stint with Archie a few years back, you worked at Wizard. So I gotta ask, what’s your reaction to the end of the print magazine?

Alex Segura: On a gut level, it’s sad. Wizard was a big part of my getting into comics – or at least, sticking with them – in middle school and into college. There were times when I wasn’t actively buying any regular comic books but would still pick up Wizard to keep tabs on the industry. Working there was also huge. It was my first full-time job in the industry and gave me a crash course in comics and how they work. I also met some of my best friends there – many of whom I still talk to on a regular basis. Hell, I live with Ryan Penagos, who I first met at Wizard. So, yeah. I have a lot of fond memories of both my time at the company and my relationship with the magazine leading up to that.

Professionally, I’m not all that surprised. There was a time when Wizard was a major tastemaker – they had a big part in the rise of Image and for a long while broke major news from the Big Two. But with the rise of comic news on the web, it just seemed like they got left behind. Hopefully this new incarnation can revive the company. We’ll see.

O’Shea: Give me your top three favorite Archie characters?

Segura: That’s tough. I’ll have to say Archie, Jughead and Veronica. Archie was the character I always wanted to be, Jughead was the character I related to most and Veronica was the most fun to read just because she could be really nice and then suddenly mean. You never know where she’s coming from. But I like all of the core characters and even some of the more obscure ones. I was a pretty voracious Archie reader as a kid.

O’Shea: Thanks to your years in the industry, you’ve made a great many friends. Any chance you hope to get some of your creative friends to take a stab at telling Archie tales? On the other hand, Archie already has some great creators telling tales at present. Who are some of the creators that you hope to use your marketing skills to bring more attention to their work?

Segura: That process has begun in some ways – I’ve reached out to a lot of people that I know professionally and that I think have an affinity for Archie and the Archie characters to see if they’d be interested in contributing. I don’t want to name names just yet, mostly because we’re in the initial stages of conversations and anything can change before the book hits stands, so I don’t want to announce stuff and then spend most of my time answering questions about why X or Y didn’t materialize, you know? You’ll see the first product of those conversations this year. I can’t really say much more beyond that. But suffice to say, you’re right in your assumption and it’s going to be very cool.

O’Shea: Your years at DC were marked with an ability to effectively capitalize on the marketing strengths and advantages of social media. Every year there’s shifts in social media trends. Archie Comics already has a presence on Facebook, Twitter and iTunes–any chance Archie will be popping up on Tumblr, or are you looking to maximize Archie’s social media potential in a different way with its existing social media outlets?

Segura: Coming in, one of the first things I wanted to do was take the platforms we have – namely our site, Facebook and Twitter – and amp them up. Fans respond well when you’re engaged and you’re not just spouting the company line. Within weeks, we saw a marked increase in followers, “likes” and traffic. So, that was step one – and will be ongoing. Fans want companies to be interactive and of the moment, not just reformatted links or the same message blasted through different outlets. It’s a process, though. So, as we continue to engage, we’ll do some new things, like contests and more interactive projects. But it has to be done thoughtfully and not just to do it.

I love Tumblr, personally. I use it as my personal site and for most of my link-blogging on my own time. If we can brainstorm a unique and cool way to make it work for Archie, we’ll definitely consider it.

O’Shea: Correct if I am mistaken, but it never seems like Archie has much of a presence at comic book conventions. Are you looking to change that in the near to long term?

Segura: If by “not much of a presence” you mean we’re not at every show, then you’re right. We’re a smaller company and we have to be more thoughtful about what shows we attend. Is this the audience we want to market to? Was this show successful for us last year? Will it be this year? Unlike some of our competitors, we’re not templated in how we do business. We have the flexibility and knowledge to move and adapt to the marketplace, and that also applies to conventions and the like. I do think, though, that in the coming years we will expand our presence at both comic book shows and retailer-centric events, because we want to strengthen our relationships with retailers on the direct market side and the book market as we continue to learn from our new relationship with Random House.

O’Shea: When Heidi MacDonald interviewed you back in December, you said with your new job you will be: “helping show that new things are happening at Archie and that things are moving forward in a unique way.” Care to detail some of the new things that are happening and/or things that are moving forward?

Segura: I think for a long time the publicity mentality here was that people would react to us and then report on the news, but that only works on some levels. If anything, one of the things I’ve brought to Archie is the ability – via contacts and relationships I’ve built up over the years – to reach out to the press and industry in a more proactive way. Instead of having a story come out and crossing our fingers in the hopes someone will notice it, we have the tools to position ourselves in the press and marketplace more effectively. It’s something we’re constantly working on and tweaking, so you’ve only seen the beginning of that process.

I think a lot of people who are immersed in the day-to-day of the industry forget, because Archie doesn’t have an active superhero universe (key word: active – stay tuned) that the characters we do have aren’t recognizable. It’s quite the opposite. Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead and Reggie are some of the most well-known properties in pop culture, much like Superman and Batman. So that familiarity is a great asset in promoting and discussing these stories. A lot of people grew up reading Archie Comics, and a lot of those people are now reporters, editors, writers and so on across the media spectrum. Having that built-in familiarity is huge for us and very helpful when we get the word out. People want to know what Archie and his friends are up to because they have really strong and fond memories about the time they’ve spent or continue to spend in Riverdale. It’s something we’re very grateful for.

O’Shea: In your free time over the past few years, you’ve written a draft of your first crime novel, SILENT CITY, and are working on a second, DOWN THE DARKEST STREET. Care to discuss either?

Segura: Sure. I’m an avid mystery/crime fiction reader – have been for years. And I always wanted to write. It all really kind of gelled for me a few years ago when I first picked up a copy of George Pelecanos’ A Firing Offense, on the suggestion of my friend and Vertigo Editor Will Dennis. It blew me away. The protagonist was flawed, the story – like life – was messy and raw and the characters felt like people I knew. That’s when it all clicked for me and I realized that writing crime fiction was what I really wanted to do. I didn’t start putting pen to paper then – but that’s kind of when it fell into place. Since then, I’ve discovered so many writers that I literally have stacks of to-read piles just in the crime fiction genre. I’m a big fan of Dennis Lehane, Michael Koryta, Greg Rucka, Megan Abbott, Sara Gran, Richard Price, James Ellroy, Henning Mankell, Duane Swierczynski, Charlie Huston, Tom Piccirilli, Laura Lippman, Raymond Chandler, Michael Connelly and tons more.

I don’t want to say too much about SILENT CITY itself just because a lot isn’t really nailed down. Y’know, little things like a publisher, etc. It’s the story of Pete Fernandez, a Cuban-American journalist who’s returned to Miami after his dad’s sudden death. He’s drinking himself to death slowly and in a job he hates. When a coworker he barely talks to asks him to find his daughter, he foolishly sees the opportunity to bring some excitement to his life. Bad idea. When that turns out to be much more than he bargained for, things get interesting. It’s a story of fathers and sons, relationships, battling your inner demons and growing up – with guns, violence and a Miami backdrop.

SILENT CITY was very much a learning process, and continues to be one. After a fitful start, I finished a third draft around July of last year and then took some time to network a bit. I went to BoucherCon in San Francisco and met a lot of people in various stages of the writing process and the industry (thanks to the wonderful Jon and Ruth Jordan for making that possible!), which was a huge help and very informative.

DOWN THE DARKEST STREET is still a ways away from being done. I’m finishing up the third act of the first draft now. It’s a much darker novel than SILENT CITY and that’s been tricky – as a writer I’m learning how tough it is to literally torture your characters. And while first drafts are universally terrible, I’m hoping that by the third or fourth pass on this one, it’ll be in decent shape.

As for publication and those kind of details, nothing’s really final yet. But once I have anything to announce, you’ll know.

DC Halloween Special

O’Shea: Right before leaving DC, you had one of your stories run in a DC Halloween Special. Are you hoping to write more comics in the near to long term?

Segura: We just announced that I’ll be writing ARCHIE AND FRIENDS #156, with Bill Galvan on art. Basically, Archie and the gang get to attend the first-ever Riverdale Comic Con. I’d written some comic stuff before, most notably the Flash/Frankenstein story in last year’s DCU HALLOWEEN SPECIAL – hat tip to the incomparable Mike Marts, Janelle Siegel, Harvey Richards, Dan DiDio, Ian Sattler, David Hyde and Austin Trunick for helping that come to life. But this was my first full-length comic. It was a lot of fun to write and our president, Mike Pellerito, was really helpful and patient with me. Most of my personal writing deals with guns, murder and the like, so shifting gears and trying to be funny and all ages was a challenge. But one I’m hoping I can keep trying! I got a real kick out of it and had a few “pinch me” moments – like writing dialogue for Jughead or sneaking in a few exciting cameos. The issue hits in June. I’m excited to start seeing some of the art, doubly excited to start on the next one.

I’d love to do more Archie work as time permits. As you know, Archie has a fairly impressive stable of talent already, so it’s not just about wanting to do it – it’s about doing it well. Hard to compete with guys like Dan Parent, Alex Simmons, Tom DeFalco and Fernando Ruiz. In my head, I think I can probably do a script a month. Famous last words, eh? But seriously, yes. I’d love to keep the comic book writing as a regular part of my time here. So long, social life!

O’Shea: In terms of all your prose novel pursuits, what’s the biggest challenge in garnering focus to write after a long day in the office?

Segura: Making time is the hard part. My writing took a bit of a hit when I switched jobs just because with any new job there’s a transition period where you get acclimated to your workflow, commute, etc. But things seem to be settled now so I’m cranking on DOWN THE DARKEST STREET again. I find I do my best writing in the mornings on weekends, or on weeknights when I manage to get home at a decent hour. The key is to get in front of the computer and avoid distractions. Stuff like Twitter, Facebook, email, Tumblr, your telephone – even if it takes you away from the writing for a moment – can be dangerous. And it’s tough – because I enjoy social media as much as the next guy. But your time writing has to be very solitary, otherwise you’re just writing a few paragraphs in bursts and not getting much of a flow.

O’Shea: As if your writing did not demand enough of your free time, you also sing and play guitar in the band, The Faulkner Detectives, along with Elizabeth Keenan: bass; Meg Wilhoite: vocals/keys; and Vanessa Lopez: drums/vocals. Any intention to go into the studio eventually–or do you prefer the adrenaline rush of playing at venues, more than recording?

Segura: I think our big goal is to learn the 10 songs we do have so we can play live. I’ve only played two shows with my last band, so I definitely want to make playing live around the city a regular thing if we can swing it. Considering we’ve only been together as a four-piece for a few months, I’m really pleased about our progress. We don’t really sound like anyone else, which is a good sign. We all get along really well and are like-minded about what we want to do with the band, so I think we’re in good shape.

O’Shea: When do you sleep?

Segura: Believe it or not, I’m usually in bed by 11. Thrilling, right?

O’Shea: Any parting thoughts to share with your Robot 6 Archie Comics fans?

Segura: I’d just like to let fans know that we have a lot of exciting stuff in store – Kevin Keller’s own mini-series, Mega Man in April, Sonic Genesis and a few things that’ll be announced in the coming months. It’s a very cool time to be an Archie Comics fan, so they’re in for a treat.

Hardman's Fortean character design

Not to mince words: In the plethora of talented artists that are working at Marvel currently, Gabriel Hardman is the best. His eye for layout alone injects a vitality to his work rarely seen in comics. In addition to discussing his collaborative efforts with writer Jeff Parker, most recently on Hulk (Issue 30.1 hits stands this Wednesday, March 16, 2011), Hardman was kind enough to give Robot 6 a sneak peek of a sci-fi OGN he’s working on, with his wife, Corinna Bechko, called STATION TO STATION. My thanks to Hardman for his time and to friend of the blog, Jeff Parker, for helping arrange this interview. Finally, please be sure to contribute to the comments section this week, as Hardman is seeking suggestions for future Daily Sketches.

Tim O’Shea: In terms of current artists in the industry, you have a strikingly distinctive layout approach. Not every artist is as ambitious as you are. Do you ever back off from challenging scenes to layout, or is that what part of what makes the work interesting for you.

Gabriel Hardman: Storytelling in general is what keeps me interested in comics and the layouts are a huge part of that. My only goal is to serve the story being told. When I read the script, I can visualize the angles and layouts pretty easily. Figuring out a given angle is fairly simple: focus on the most important thing happening in the panel. Then place those important elements on the page in a way that leads your eye from top left to bottom right. It all works best when she script gives me freedom with the layouts.

O’Shea: In terms of the recently finished Scorched Earth arc, which did you enjoy more: drawing Monster Island or redesigning MODOK?

Hardman: I enjoyed both but drawing Monster Island wins. That was some of the most fun I’ve had drawing freelance comics.

O’Shea: What is it about Jeff Parker’s approach to comics narrative that made you want to work with him?

Hardman: Jeff and I don’t have identical tastes but the Venn diagram of where our sensibilities overlap lines up pretty well.

O’Shea: In recent months, Hulk has been the land of many Marvel character cameos. Does Jeff seek suggestions from you of characters you might want to draw?

Hardman: The cameos in the Scorched Earth Arc were pretty much set when I started on the book. It was good to have the opportunity to show I could handle drawing those guys. Thor worked out particularly well in my opinion. I had drawn Namor in Agents of Atlas but he’s a fun character to draw. He has such a solid personality. Not to mention the Watcher. I love drawing characters that have roots stretching back to the Stan and Jack days.

O’Shea: In what ways does your work benefit from being colored by Elizabeth Breitweiser?

Hardman: Bettie has quickly established herself as one of the best colorists in comics. She can bring a sense of light to the colors that is essential in providing depth to the images as well as the technical ability to model forms without overwhelming them. But she also has the most important quality needed in a colorist: taste. A colorist can have all the technical skills in the world but if they don’t have taste in choosing colors that work with the storytelling it could sink the book.

O’Shea: You worked in comics for a period prior to your work in the film industry. Once you returned to comics, did you find some of your film business dealings came in handy?

Hardman: I was 18 years old when I started drawing comics professionally the first time around and I lacked a certain amount of professionalism. The tenacity that got me into the comic business didn’t necessarily serve me well when dealing with editors. Working in feature films is an extremely high pressure career. I’ve worked directly for some of the biggest directors in the business and it’s given me a level of discipline I lacked when I was younger. Drawing thousands of storyboards over the years made me a much faster artist than I was the first time around in comics.

Another thing working in movies has given me is a lack of preciousness. I work very hard to maintain a high level of quality but I’m not married to things. If an idea or a drawing isn’t working, I have no qualms about throwing it away and moving on. In features you could put months of work into a sequence only to have it tossed aside for budgetary reasons or just at the whim of the director. And you can’t pout about it, you have to start work on the next thing. I think there’s value in not being precious.

O’Shea: I saw you recently tweet about attending a Decemberists concert. Do you listen to music while you work or do you find that too distracting?

Hardman: I listen to a lot of music. I also listen to radio and several podcasts. Sometimes I have movies running in the background. Anything to keep me going.

O’Shea: Any chance you might collaborate again with your wife (Corinna Bechko) on a comics project down the road?

Hardman: We’ve been working on a couple of projects. We’ve been hesitant to announce anything before one of them is finished but I’ve attached a couple of pages from the sci-fi OGN we’re working on called STATION TO STATION. My plan is to finish drawing it over the summer then we’ll look for a publisher. You guys are the first to get a glimpse of these pages.

O’Shea: Any questions you’d like to ask your Robot6 fans?

Hardman: I do a lot of sketches that I post online. You can see them all at http://heathencomics.deviantart.com/gallery/

I’d love to hear from fans what characters they’d like to see me draw in future Daily Sketches. They can follow me on twitter @gabrielhardman to let me know.

I just want to thank everyone who’s been supportive over the last two years. There’s nothing better than hearing that people are enjoying my work.

If you’re eager to learn more about his approach to storytelling and how his work in the movie industry helps shape that approach, be sure to read Comic Book Resources’ interview with Hardman from earlier this month.