BATMAN LIVE
The intrinsic (and modernized) Dick Grayson is ‘celebrated’ at the forefront of a rollercoaster narrative.  We see him evolve from young and talented circus performer, through the pain of losing his parents – and later finding that dark, common ground in Batman.  Grayson develops his circus skills on Gotham’s crime-filled streets under Batman’s watchful wing – and before long, finds himself in the position of ‘right hand man’ and assumes a new identity…  Robin.

Not knowing the true identity of his new mentor, Robin quickly becomes Batman’s protégé – and with Gotham City herself, screaming out for a saviour in a disco-dance of villains (including The Joker, Harley Quinn, Catwoman, Riddler, Two-Face, Penguin and Poison Ivy) our faith rests upon the Dynamic Duo to protect us, serve us and most importantly, entertain us.

Gotham City is featured as the blood and bones of a hugely impressive, audience intruding stage, which finds itself relentlessly pummelled with state-of-the-art pyrotechnics, special effects and illusions.

In the hunt for Comic Culture shaped tit-bits and general inside info, I opened by asking where this all came from??
Nick was relaxed but, excited to talk about a project he’s (quite literally) lived and breathed for two and a half years, a project he had the idea to do himself, an idea he pitched to a (skeptical) panel at Warner Brothers…

Tuesday 12^th July – 13:00

I understand you dreamt this up yourself? and pitched the idea to Warner Brothers – where did the inspiration come from? and how did they react initially?
Well, about two and a half years ago, myself and some friends/colleagues decided make ‘wish list’…  the top 5 productions we’d all like to create and work on.  Batman was on everyone’s list and, for me, Batman was at the top – we developed a strong concept and took it to Warner Brothers.   The reaction initially was, as you’d expect… quite tentative, it was the creative team line-up (and their credentials) that won the pitch.
Everyone involved in the show are at the top of their game.  Warner Brothers had such confidence in the team, the excitement quickly began to build – and we got the green light.

Who in particular were they most excited about?
Well, the whole team really… Creative Director Anthony Van Laast and Co-Director, James Powell.  Set designer Es Devlin (who’s designed stets for lady Gaga).   We’ve got music composed by James Brett, sound designer Simon Baker, lighting design by Patrick Woodroffe, video direction by Sam Pattinson, costume design by Jack Galloway… the list just goes on and on! we’ve also worked closely with circus consultants.  Some of these guys have worked with the biggest performers in the world and built some of the biggest traveling shows ever designed.   We’ve got original art by Jim Lee telling Batman’s origin story on the video screen, with writing from Jeph Loeb.  Also writing is (comic book fan) Allan Heinberg, whose resume includes Grey’s Anatomy and Sex And The City… so, we’ve got an incredible team writing strong comic content and believable, relatable relationships.
We’ve been doing this for a long, long time… the creative team are second to none.

What a fantastic feeling to get the green light!  So you’ve been planning and working on the show since then? How has it evolved? Will the show feel like a comic book?
The whole idea of the show is to bring the comic book to the stage, so Inspiration came directly from the comic books.  I want the entire show to feel like a comic book from start to finish.  We’ve got a 100ft video screen which we use for moving backgrounds, set changes and location.  We also use the video screen to tell Batman’s origin story (as I mentioned before) with Jim Lee’s original artwork so, it’s very much a comic book on stage.  There’s an original Batmobile designed by Gordon Murray… an actual supercar, engineering legend!  it’s a fully functional, working car designed with no road-legal restrictions so, it could actually go 150mph, upside down on the ceiling.   We also have a revamped Robin origin AND all the key characters from the Batman universe which, is probably the best line-up of villains in the comic book world I think?! maybe some of the best fictional villains ever created.

What can you tell me about the new Robin origin?
It’s a more modern take.  The key points are all still in there, it’s just a allot more modern and very well told.

I understand you were a big Batman fan as a child, what’s your favourite incarnation of the Caped Crusader?
My fondest memory of Batman as a child is the TV series with Adam West,  though, our show isn’t nearly as ‘camp’ that.  I loved the family-friendly storytelling and lightness, it was cheesy as hell… and that was ok.  That speaks volumes for the character, as you can go completely the other way with him and make it as dark as, say… Frank Miller has done or Christopher Nolan.  Batman is a comic book character first and foremost.

Are you aware of the DC revamp set to impact the DCU in November? Have DC/Warner Brothers been involved in the look and feel of the show?
Yes, we are aware of the coming changes, DC/Warner Brothers have been involved in EVERY single aspect of the show… everything… look and feel of costumes, characterisation, story design, personnel… everything.
Our Batman is designed to fit directly into a current Batman universe and absolutely belong there.

What kind of Batman is the show closest too?
Nowhere near as camp as Adam West, not quite as dark as Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight.

What makes this show different from other shows? namely, Spiderman Turn Off The Dark?
We both have superheroes in our show… the similarity stops there… ours is global and it’s not a theatre show or a musical.
It was important to Warner Brothers to put Batman in a “big space” on a global stage.  We’ve delivered that.

How have you managed to ‘sidestep’ the negative press that they’ve received?
You’re not the first person to ask me that.  We’ve been doing this for a long time now and our creative team is world-class (as you know).
We’re just, very good at what we do.

What’s your favourite moment in the show?
It’s all amazing! there’s one scene where the Joker and Harley Quinn stage a prison break from Arkham Asylum in a giant balloon.  The stage is engulfed with explosions and fire…
it’s quite breath-taking.

How are rehearsals going?
There’s a real buzz among the cast and crew, they’re all so excited to get the show out there… it’s buzzing!

Who will get a bigger kick out of the show? Comic book fans or… normal people?
It’s for everyone,  the look and feel of the show will appeal to everyone, young, old, Batman fan or not.

Finally… In the midst of another ‘Hollywood romance’ with comic books, it’s an exciting time for the industry.  Will the show feed off of that?… Or does it make you nervous?
It’s a fantastic time for the superhero genre at the movies.  It’s massively encouraging to see – and it can only help us.  Good Superhero movies are worth their weight in gold in Hollywood currently; the good ones easily transcend generations and fan groups.  We hope to achieve the same with our show, catering for the long-time fanboys, the family groups, the kids, the newbies and the older fans and family members.
We’ve made something really special here and I can’t wait for people to see it.

Have you got a message for the Comic Book Daily fans?
Don’t miss us.  We’re on a tour of the world, so once we’ve been and gone… we won’t be back for quite a while.
Come and see it.

The Batman Live arena tour is produced by Nick Grace Management and Water Lane Productions Ltd (WLP).

One of the special guests was comic book artist Valentine DeLandro.  I got the opportunity to sit with Valentine and talk to him about comics and of course G.I. Joe.

Ed (E): When was that point when you decided you wanted to be in the comic book business?

Valentine (V): When I was in journalism school, I started to miss drawing.  I was drawing for the majority of my teen years and through high school.  I went to a high school that specialized in visual arts, so doing that and taking away from that and writing, which I also enjoy doing, but I like doing art more.  If push came to shove, then that would be the one.  So it was sometime in university, that’s when I realized I really wanted to pursue this, and try to figure out a way to do this.  I knew that meant going to a lot of conventions, getting portfolios together and meeting editors, and getting turned down by editors, and picking yourself back up.  There was a lot of that.  It was some time around there that I realized this is what I wanted to do.

E: You live in the Toronto area?

V: Yes

E: What is it like living up here, but mainly the business is in the States?

V:  It’s better now with how much the publisher’s are relying on the internet, and just communicating digitally these days.  Beforehand it was trickier.  There was a lot of Fed Ex’ing going on.  When I first started, people were shuttling boards back and forth, to get them inked and stuff like that.  It did make it seem much more of an advantage being closer in the States.  I guess it would be a little easier transporting material back and forth. Besides everything is going digital, not much of a difference.  That’s why a lot of the publisher’s are reaching out and looking out for talent in places they probably weren’t looking before.  Especially over seas in Europe and other countries instead of North America now.  It’s great, it’s a great thing for the industry, I think that they are getting past borders, and branching out, there’s a lot of talent out there.  So it’s a good thing for the industry, it’s keeping it healthy.

E:  You have a family?

V: Yes

E: How many kids do you have?

V:  I have one and, another on the way in November.

E:  I have three kids myself, and the business I am in, I have to juggle work life and family life.  Is it tougher having a family and being in the business?

V: It’s tough, I wouldn’t say it’s tougher than anybody else trying to raise a family and work.  It is work ultimately and that is the best way to approach it.  As much as I love this and as much it is a passion, I have to step back and say this is how I am providing for my family, and this is how I am putting food on the table.  The best way to approach it, is treat it as a 9 to 5, even when my hours tend to stretch past 9 to 5.  You have to find that balance.  I want to spend time with my family, and watch my daughter grow up. It’s tough sometimes.  You have 3 kids, I’m sure you know how difficult it could be, to have to do work, when you would rather just spend time with your family instead of work.  It’s finding that balance.  I’m still trying to find it, and come November (when his second child arrives) I’m probably going to find it again.  It’s going be interesting.  It was a bit of an adjustment, when my daughter was first born.  A lot of books were late around that time.  Everybody goes through it.  Everybody struggles.  I don’t think my situation is any different.  It’s not better or worse than anybody elses.  We don’t have much of a choice otherwise.

The page I bought. The last page from G.I. Joe Declassified #3. The Joes are leaving the funeral of Shooter.

E: Who are some of your biggest influences on your work?

V: That is a very long list.  I grew up, as far as comics go, really into Super Hero stuff, leaning more towards DC stuff.  Mainly Jerry Ordway, John Byrne and Garcia Lopez.  Then I started shifting over to Marvel stuff, not because I preferred one over the other. My introduction to comics was through cartoons.  I grew up watching Super Friends and Spider-Man.  Spider-Man was the only real introduction to me, as far as the Marvel stuff.  I always loved the Spider-Man stuff.  The Ditko’s, the Romita’s, that is the stuff that really influenced me.  There are so many.  I am leaving people out, if this was a different day, I would have a different list.  They are the guys I first remember following, wanting to pick up their books.

E: When we talked at ComiCon (Fan Appreciation Day), you said your Mom gave away your G.I. Joe collection.  Since  we are here now, what is your favourite G.I. Joe memory?

V: Growing up, my favourite Joe memory was collecting them with my friends.  We used to collect them as a group.  One friend would have certain figures and they would bring them over.  And you would complete the set.  I had two friends that I used to hang out with a lot, who used to collect Joes.  We tried to keep them pristine and make sure all the weapons were there.  That is probably my favourite Joe memory.   Who doesn’t like that time?  All you had to do was pull out some plastic guys and play with them for an afternoon.  Then maybe take a nap.

E: How many did you have?

V:  Somewhere close to 25, 30 Joes.  I had something like 6 or 7 vehicles.  I had a younger cousin, who used to get more Joes, and toys in general than me.  We used to play with them all the time.

A big thanks to Valentine DeLandro.  I really enjoyed talking to him.  I turned off my recorder and we talked more about G.I. Joe and comics.  He was selling some pages from G.I. Joe Declassified and G.I. Joe Special Mission Brazil.  I purchased a beautiful page from him, from Declassified #3.  You can visit his page to check out other pages available for sale.

Valentine DeLandro will be at Fan Expo (August 25th – 28th).  He tried to have something special ready for JoeCon, but ran out of time.  He plans to have something special made up for Fan Expo.

On Nov. 21 I caught up with Kill Shakespeare creators Anthony Del Col and Andy Belanger at the fall Toronto ComicCon. We chatted for a little over 30 minutes on a variety of subjects: attending small and large conventions, their Pitch This victory at TIFF, their favourite characters, the book’s progressively abstract artwork and the exhaustive work they do to promote their comic. Here’s the complete interview with the guys for your listening pleasure.

[podcast]http://www.comicbookdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Kill-Shakespeare-Interview.mp3[/podcast]

Over the weekend I caught up with the masterminds behind the nefarious plot to kill Shakespeare writers Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery and artist Andy Belanger. These three gentlemen are hilarious and we’ve preserved the audio for you all to enjoy. Tun in for a compelling interview about poorly drawn horses that look like tiny dogs, Harrison Ford, perhaps a teaser about a cavalry fight with poorly drawn horses, and what the future holds for this illustrious cast of characters.

Interview with the Creators of Kill Shakespeare by Comic Book Daily

We’d like to thank The Kill Shakespeare guys for taking time out of the very busy Fan Expo to chat with us.

Andrew Ardizzi is a student of journalism at Humber. He writes for the Humber Et Cetera. You can find him at his blog Come Gather ’round People Wherever You Roam. You can also follow him on Twitter.

This guy

responsible for Daredevil, Powers, Goldish, Jinx and Torso, interviews David Mamet – this guy:

responsible for Hoffa, Glengarry Glen Ross, House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner and the tv series Homicide.

and they talk comics…

go read now.

If you haven’t heard about Kill Shakespeare yet, it’s not from lack of buzz. Having had positive write ups from Wired, Bleeding Cool, Topless Robot and Comic Book Resources. Co-creators Conor McCreery & Anthony Del Col have crafted a wonderfully complex and exciting comic that cherry picks William Shakespeare’s greatest characters into one of the more original stories to come along in a very long time. It also doesn’t hurt to have Andy Belanger, one of the most exciting and gifted storytellers in comics, supplying the artwork of his career. The fact is the comic feels very much like imagination let loose, being confined only to the limits that the creators have placed themselves (let’s be honest no one wants to disrespect the bard by doing something completely out of character.)

We managed to get an interview with all three gentlemen after their panel at Wizard World Toronto.

Pete: The idea of the ‘shared universe’ is something that is very particular to comics. This is one of the first times that Shakespeare’s universe has been tackled in such as way. What are some of the inspirations that led to Kill Shakespeare?

Conor: When we first thought about the idea for this Kill Shakespeare thing it really did come as a videogame. We were sitting there, Kill Bill had come out, and we were joking around about mass multiplayer games. Anthony [Del Col] had said, “What about a Kill Bill but instead of David Carradine, it’s Billy Shakespeare?” So, we sat there and thought, “What if?” You know, why not? It would be really interesting if you saw Hamlet have to do battle with Romeo. What would that look like? And that type of mash-up idea.

And being a big fan of Fables – that just sort of got us going in terms of what is possible here. We probably spent about three…three and a half years working on the concept and working on it in terms of an idea, like how could we sell this to a publisher, before we really put pen to paper and started committing what this story was really about.

Pete: It’s going to be a 12 issues maxi-series. Is there going to be anything further? Will you plant seeds for future storylines, or is this going to be a done in one story?

Conor: Well, the way we look at it now is that we want the twelve issue arc to be a story in and of itself. I think that the best stories are the ones that leave you to wonder. I think what really makes any story fantastic is when you can think about “what if,” what would happen next? So we do have an idea in our mind of what will happen next with these characters, but we don’t want to have the sort of story where it ends on a cliff-hanger, and if you couldn’t get/didn’t want, you wouldn’t have felt that you got a real story. This will be a full story – but, yeah definitely to us there are many more chapters to be told.

Pete: Shakespeare has often been referred to as a populist entertainer of his time, and comics have been considered a bastard art form. Is this an attempt to mainstream Shakespeare more than he already is?

Andy Belanger: To an extent, but I also think it’s a springboard for people who – you know they might be high school students and they’re being forced to read Romeo & Juliet, and they look at the book and they look at the language and they don’t understand it and don’t want to understand it. I think this is something that teachers could use as a springboard for that and, well, really anyone in general. Hopefully people read this and if they’re not familiar with Shakespeare it will get them interested in that.

Pete: In terms of story lines, did you guys make up a timeline of when and where characters would fit in?

Conor: It is a bit random, and we did put some thought into that, but it’s one of the things we didn’t want to be nailed down in. Our belief i

KS's Juliet

s that if Shakespeare created it, it belongs in this world. One of the things we kind of stayed away from was a lot of the historical plays – with the exception of Richard III.

Anthony and I had a discussion of Julius Caesar. Maybe he doesn’t fit in this main arc, but maybe somebody else would think, “I want to see Julius Caesar throwing down with Titus now that this is happening in kill Shakespeare!” But we didn’t work too hard because of a lot of it feels very organic.

Anthony: Yeah, a lot of it feels very organic. I mean, we thought or toyed with the idea of just throwing everyone in this land. With a lot of them, we used the back-story straight from the source, but we played around with others. For example Juliet has actually survived her ordeal with Romeo. It’s about seven or eight years later. She was actually resuscitated and brought back to life, which we don’t really think is too much of a stretch, because when you look at the play Romeo & Juliet there a

KS's Falstaff!

re lots of fantastical elements, such as the apothecary’s giving the potion that makes them appear to be dead for three days, that sort of thing.

So we play with their back-stories, but not everyone. Othello and Iago – we play with that. Romeo shows up, so yes he’s involved. But we’re very faithful and honest to the original version of the—

Conor: Spoiler alert! Spoiler Alert!

Andy B: Don’t bring attention to it!

[laughs]

Andy B: It feels to me to be darker and grittier with more violence, but similar in tone to Neverending Story. Like each of those characters felt like their own storybooks, right?

Pete: Right.

Andy B: So, it’s like that – each character comes from their own little world and their own little land. It’s a mixing of the two. Because we’re between a 600 year gap, they all kind of…

Pete: Fluid?

Andy B: It’s believable to see a Musketeer next to a Knight – it’s not a big stretch.

Pete: So I read the first issue and really enjoyed it. Actually – just a side note: the colouring is beautiful.

Andy B: Yeah, yeah…my Ian! My Ian Herring is our colourist. He’s been working with me for two years now. He was an intern – a Sheridan grad, who I’ve been training to colour my stuff so I don’t have to colour my stuff. We got the Shakespeare job for him and he’s been working his butt off and really making it sing.

Pete: Andy, you’re known for your horror comics. Bottle of Awesome, Raising Hell and Friday the 13^th. The first issue of the Kill Shakespeare has some beautiful fight sequences with the Pirates. Are you going to ramp up the violence to your typical level?

Andy B: Like Andy B’s hyper-violence? [laughs] You know what? I actually tried to rein it in, and they tell me to ramp it up.

Anthony: I think one of our defining mantras when we looked through the initial sketches was ‘more blood!’

Conor: But no viscera!

Andy B: I think you’re pretty much used to me seeing heads hacked off and blood everywhere and I’ve been trying to rein that in a bit, but they want more and more…

Conor: I think there’s that kind of stuff in there, but one of the things you find in issue two is that not all the characters are what they initially presented themselves in issue one. I think there’s a couple of moments after issue one where characters do some pretty horrific things to each other – but it’s not like it’s this slashing through. It’s more like one or two acts that – to me – are much more horrific because they’re very real. You can imagine that if – this happened to me – you’d be terrified. When Anthony and I were writing we wanted to have moments that we really haven’t seen, so when we handed it to Andy his horror sensibilities really made it so naturally creepy.

Andy B: There’s a scene in issue two that’s actually creepier – more twisted, more psychological – than anything Jason really does. Jason just runs around and hacks people up – but this is an actual psychological thing that happens and… [Anthony and Conor] are both looking at me right now saying don’t say anything!

Pete: It’s okay. I actually don’t want to get spoiled. It’s on my pull.

Andy B: Issue two is awesome, I was super happy when I was working on it. Issue one was really hard. It was like giving birth because I didn’t know how I was going to draw it. Getting use to which tools I was going to use on the job, going through everything in the book, from tech pens to pit pens. Now I’m using a paintbrush and it just work better. But issue two is where I figured everything out. So if you liked issue one, wait ’til you see issues two and three. Because they’re probably the best work I’ve done.

Pete: Awesome. Thanks for the interview, I cannot wait to get the rest of the issues and best of luck! Hopefully we can talk again once issue two ships!

Kill Shakespeare #1 (of 12, $3.99, 32 pages, full color) will be available in stores on April, 2010. Diamond order code: FEB10 0959. Check it out!

Pete DeCourcy is EiC of ComicBookDaily.com. He tumbls over at You Practically Rock and writes for The Simple Art of Crime. If you have any questions or demands of him, he can be reached via email at pdecourcy[at]comicbookdaily[dot]com

Photo by Ed Peterson

For those of you out there that are fans of uber awesome writer Matt Fraction (Thor: Ages of Thunder, Casanova, Iron Fist, etc) now have the chance to ask him questions. He’s taking over Warren Ellis’ forum to give you guys the chance to grill him on all the ins and outs of his work.

As a huge fan of Fraction’s work – specifically Rex Mantooth and Casanova I can think of no better person to toss questions at. He’s an incredibly witty and intelligent guy who also manages to create some of the most witty and intelligent comics being published today.

Here’s Warren Ellis with an explanation and some guide lines:

Matt Fraction is the writer of INVINCIBLE IRON MAN, UNCANNY X-MEN, CASANOVA, and a bunch of other stuff. In his previous life as co-founder of motion graphics studio MK12, he’s made music videos, short films and, yes, a bunch of other stuff. He is husband to writer Kelly Sue DeConnick and progenitor of and warden to tiny human whirlwind Henry Leo Fraction.

It’s been a year or so since Matt last did a residency here, and he has stupidly kindly volunteered to come back for a week to answer any and all questions.

So fire away, and Matt will get to them as best he can.

Note: this thread is being watched, and obvious nutters will be disappeared. Disappearing you from Whitechapel is a one-button operation that takes a lot less effort than you expend in making new accounts and being a nutter in public. Plus, it amuses us.

So, with that out of the way: please speak your brains to my friend Matt and make him regret volunteering for this. If you can keep him engaged, I think he may have some news for you by the end of the week.

– W

So there you have it. We’ll be following this forum for the rest of the week so expect us to post some of the best qs and as.. hopefully some of our loyal readers will help out with some intelligent queries.

You can check out all the fun at the Whitechapel Forum: The Matt Fraction Interrogation.

That's the look of a man who knows his philosophy!

Recently, CBD spoke with Fred Van Lente. We talk Action Philosophers, upcoming projects, breaking into comics and of course, the Marvel Zombies. Either listen to it, read it or do both at the same time!

Fred Van Lente

CBD: Welcome back to creator profiles with ComicBookDaily. This is David Diep and today I am speaking with Fred Van Lente; the writer of such works as Action Philosophers. Thanks for taking time out of your schedule to speak with us today, Fred.

Fred: Thanks for having me, David.

CBD: So I was curious, how did you make your break into the comic book industry?

Fred: Well, to paraphrase Ernest Hemingway; “Gradually, then very quickly”. I struggled in the independent world for about a decade. Just doing a bunch of independent science-fiction books, did some humor books, I did some…I did a superhero crime series called the Silencers with a buddy of mine I went to college with named Steve Ellis, who today is better known for doing High Moon over at Zuda comics. He and I did the series for Moonstone; which is a small independent outfit out of Chicago. We did that in 2003 and that got the notice of Mark Pen who was an editor of Tokyopop- at Tokyopop at the time. I think it was Steve who actually gave him a copy of the book at a convention somewhere and he liked the book. When he moved over to Marvel, he invited me to pitch for this anthology book they’re doing; Amazing Fantasy where I created the new female Scorpion. That was sort of my big Marvel debut and at the same time and totally coincidentally, another friend of mine from collage; Ryan Dunley and I had been doing these goofy educational- I hate calling them educational- “edu-tainment” philosophy comics called Action Philosophers. We just got the self-publishing xeric grant for that and ironically, Action Philosophers #1 and Amazing Fantasy #7 which was my first issue; appeared on the same day in April I think of 2005. Ironically, I had broken my ankle so I couldn’t go to the store-

CBD: To do the signings kind of thing?

Fred: Or to see them, you know? On the rack there and that kind of stunk. But Ryan, god bless him, went to Jim Haley’s Universe in Manhattan and took a cell phone photo of it and of course because it was Action- it was Action Philosophers and Amazing Fantasy. In most stores they were racked next to each other. You know, so many stores alphabetize their titles by title.

CBD: Right, that’s a pretty good story you got there for your debut of comics.

Fred: I literally broke into the industry.

CBD: So Action Philosophers, it reads like a comedic philosophy for dummies book. How did you come up with the idea for the book?

I will bet 10 bucks none of you knew that Plato could probably kick your ass before you read this book.

Fred: Ryan…like I said, Ryan and I were buddies in college. We were roommates briefly and we used to go to the Small Press Expo which is the small independent comics festival in Maryland just outside of Washington, D.C. They used to do an anthology every year of submissions of people who showed up at the convention and one year the theme was biographies. They wanted you to do a short biography comic. So Ryan was going and I was going so I decided to write one for him and Steve Ellis and I had been sort of doing these goofy comics for the SPEX up until this point parodying all these different kinds of comics. In fact, if you go to fredvanlente.com; my website, you can actually see the comics Steve and I did. We did a parody of superhero comics called Right Wing which was basically what if the GOP ran a superhero character of the-

CBD: The Jack Chick stuff I saw?

Fred: Exactly, the Jack Chick comics and we did that for great Cthulu; the lovecraft creations. So to sort of continue in that vein, another kind of comics I hadn’t made fun of yet were the comics that you used to get sort of bubbled in with those Masters of the Universe- the He-Man Masters of the Universe dolls- action figures whatever. So I thought it would be funny if you bought a Friedrich Nietzsche action figure and this was the comic you got bundled in with the action figure. Hence the term; Action Philosophers.

CBD: So it stemmed from the love of action figures pretty much? The comic that came with the action figure.

Fred: Right, it stemmed from a love of making fun of comics.

CBD: How much research was involved in doing the project? You must have read tons of books on these philosophers and understood their theories to compress it all into a few pages.

Fred: Yeah, I tried to not cheat, I tried to you know, and look at textbooks and Wikipedia and that kind of stuff. I have- I’m not gonna tell you which ones I scrimped on but I’ve got a 85% success rate of: I’ve read at least one book about that philosopher and I’ve read one work by that philosopher. You know, it would take a good three or four months just to do the research and the writing of each script. Fortunately Ryan draws so slow…

CBD: [laughs] I promise not to show this interview to him later on.

Fred: Yea yeah yeah,  no no, he knows. He knows how slow he draws. But yeah, normally it wasn’t- it didn’t end up being a big deal. But no, it was terrific to have this self-taught education in Philosophy while doing the series. I learned as much if not more than the people that read it.

CBD: What’s your academic background in? Because you did a really good job of interpreting all these complex theories.

Fred: I am a proud graduate school dropout. I dropped out of the University of Pittsburgh. I was a year into my English. Lit graduate program- I guess the Masters program. The people were really nice but it was- you had to be a teaching assistant and I was like 22, I was just out of college; undergrad where I got my degree in English Literature. And I did it more because my parents wanted me to get a real job and-

CBD: And so you became a comic book writer instead.

Fred: Well what happened was, all the people I used to hang out with in undergrad were studying to be comic book artists. And Steve Ellis had gotten a lot of work at Marvel and DC and I was pitching stuff through him. We were becoming somewhat successful at it so- at least initially. And so I was like “screw this, this comics thing is easy. I’m quitting and moving to New York City! To see my name in lights and comic books” And then you know, I bummed around for the next eight years basically, at soul crushing temp jobs. But I have a- my background is in English Literature and I did quite a lot of that and did various papers and stuff like that.

CBD: Is this it for Action Philosophers? Are there any plans for future installments? You’ve covered almost everyone there is out there for the Western Philosophy.

Fred: Well, we’ve got a few more and you will see them this fall-this November from Evil Twin comics, just in time for Christmas! The Action Philosophers Omnibus is coming out, aka the More Than Complete Action Philosophers and it’s more than complete because it’s the entire series from beginning to end; revised and corrected and we took the stories which kind of randomly came out of history and we put them in correct chronological order. So you get a history of Philosophy from pre-Socratic to Jacque Derrida, so you literally go from pre-history to the 20^th century and there are four new stories in that collection that will never been seen anywhere else to trick you into buying the book.

CBD: Who are the four stories on?

Fred: Epicurus the sage, Rumi the great Islamic poet, William James and…who’s the other one…August Comte whose name I just totally destroyed the pronunciation of.

CBD: You also did another series called Comic Book Comics. It was a great miniseries you did about the history of comics-

Fred: Well, remember what I said about Ryan being really slow?

CBD: Yeah.

Fred: It hasn’t actually completed yet. He’s still trying to complete- he’s drawing the fourth issue right now. In fact during this interview I might have to go over to his house and check and find out. But it’s still chugging along, we’re getting there. We made it into the 60’s and we’re gonna make it all the way to the 21^st century god darn it.

CBD: So how come you decided to do a- a history of comics comic?

Fred: Well, partly for the simple reason that it’s never been done before and part of the reason that it’s never been done before is that I imagine due to various legal and trademark issues that now- since Ryan and I don’t have a you know, pot to piss in, we don’t really worry about anyone suing us. Also, we’re doing it in a very satirical manner, so we can actually sort of hide behind the first amendment in that sense because parody is one of the exceptions. Taking characters like Superman, Mickey Mouse, Spider-Man and everybody. And you know, we wanted to keep doing humanities in comic form but we went through a bunch of different possibilities and ended up settling on this as the most fertile ground. Each issue has definitely sold more than Action Philosophers believe it or not

CBD: Wow, that’s pretty impressive.

Fred: I guess we made the right choice.

CBD: You used so many sources in your book, In your little bibliographies, just tons and tons of books. How did you even start researching everything? Where did you know there’s this book there’s that book…

Fred: Well, I- since 2002 even before my professional career started, I’ve been lucky enough to volunteer for an organization here in New York called the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art or MOCA. And I curate all their shows, I was chair of the Curatel committee so I sort of enjoyed applying my knowledge of the medium to that. So I actually had a lot of the books and had a lot of the knowledge already. I certainly knew more about the subject when we started this than I knew about philosophy when we started Action Philosophers. So I already had amassed a fairly vast comics and cartoon art history library. And I used books in the museums collection and just sort of enhanced my knowledge that way. So it was definitely a subject I had some knowledge of before beginning the series.

CBD: So you’re almost- you’re pretty much a comic book historian of sorts at this point.

Fred: I guess you know, if they interview me for  a documentary, they can put that you know.

CBD: Put that on all your business cards too?

Fred: I prefer conspiracy theorist, I like that better. That’s the classic unpaid, undocumented, unlicensed, investigator/historian.

Best stories using Hercules in years!

CBD: Right, right. So when you’re at Marvel, you’re- you pretty much jumped on with Amazing Fantasy and then you’ve pretty much become well known for your work on Incredible Hercules with Greg Pak, where you’re list as co-author with him.

Fred: Yup, he and I write each issue together.

CBD: How does the co-writing system work? When you’re at- it’s usually just the artist and the writer. Writer churns out the idea for the artist to put down. So when there’s two writers, how does it work for scripting?

Fred: Well, neither Greg or I had ever co-written anything before. So when I was asked to sort of help…I essentially was asked to help Greg out because- this series started when Greg was still in the middle of doing the huge World War Hulk event and so he sort of needed a pinch hitter. We ended up sort of hitting it off very well right off the bat and we just sort of decided because he and I had never met each other before, we had never worked- not only worked with each other before, we’ve never worked with anyone else for that matter, co-writing. I guess good fences make good neighbors, we literally wrote- one of us would write half an issue and send it to the other one and he would write the second half. And then we would pass it back and forth and eventually you would get this single voice that’s different from his voice, different from my voice but it’s the voice of Incredible Hercules and we managed to retain that through the whole run of the series.

CBD: Right, cause Incredible Hercules is probably one of the better written Marvel titles coming out at the moment. So it’s interesting that you guys write half of it, send it to the other guy and he sends it back to you?

Fred: Yes, we’ve been a little…that hasn’t quite…we’ve done a little…it hasn’t as dogmatic as that recently because of our various schedules. Sometimes he and I take on specific issues, but generally that’s how it’s worked.

I’m a huge Spider-Man fan, which also makes me a massive idiot for not thinking to ask Fred some Spider-Man related questions.

CBD: Speaking of Marvel stuff, lately you’ve been writing all Marvel Zombies: The Return books. Like, you wrote Marvel Zombies 4…you just wrote the return…so are we expecting to see a 5 and 6 coming out at this point?

Fred: You know those zombies, they’re hard to kill, they’re hard to keep down, they just keep getting back up again.

CBD: When you’re writing the Marvel Zombies, you pretty much have the entire Marvel sandbox to play with. You have access to all the characters, just in their zombie form. Any characters you would like to write; unzombified?

Fred: Well, I really enjoyed writing Machine Man from Marvel Zombies 3. He’s a terrific character and sort of a perfect zombie killer. I love writing all the monster characters from Marvel Zombies 4. That was sort of the most fun of that to me. Taking all these great 70’s Marvel characters like Jennifer Cale and Jack Russel and Morbius and merge them with this- the incredible successful Marvel Zombies series. With the exception of Tomb of Dracula, you could say that it is most successful Marvel horror franchise.

CBD: What’s the hardest thing to deal with when you’re writing an established characters in the Marvel Universe? You’ve got these long winding back stories from years and years of continuity.

Fred: Well, one of the things they teach you in creative writing school class is that when you’re writing characters, you want there to be a sense that this character has a life outside your story. That he just didn’t or she didn’t just magically appear in the story and does whatever he or she is doing and then just vanishes again. You want it to feel like they have lives, they go to the store, they have hopes and dreams and so on and so forth. And continuity, which is often maligned and often for very good reason is given that back story and sense of purpose you know. The obvious thing that I can think of off the top of my head because we were just talking about is-was I had Machine Man be the hero of Marvel Zombies 3; Aaron Stack. And what’s great about Aaron Stack is that he used to have this relationship with Jocasta; this other robot. So I was able to just take that and go “ah-ha” Jocasta will go along with him and that why he goes and motivates and the reason he sticks his neck out for the human race against the zombie plague. So you have to make continuity your friend. You can’t let- I guess the simplest way to say it is, you can’t be a slave to continuity, you have to make continuity serve you.

CBD: Right, current series. Stuff from Marvel, DC, independents, what are you reading?

Fred: You know, I don’t get to read a lot of comics unfortunately. I spend all day working on them, so it’s very hard for me to sit down and say “I’m going to read some super hero comics”. Generally speaking, I watch sports.

CBD: Really.

Fred: Really, I get as far away from comics as possible. But that said, I really enjoy the series; Poly from David Mazzuchelli (CBD: Asterios Polyp). I’m enjoying anything Johnny Ryan does. I really liked The Hunter; the adaptation  by-

CBD: Darwyn Cooke.

Fred: The Parker adaptation by Darwyn Cooke was terrific-

CBD: Did you read the latest Johnny Ryan book; Prison Pit?

Fred: Oh, I haven’t. I’ve got to.

CBD: It’s quite an interesting read.

Fred: Is that from Fantagraphics?

CBD: Yup.

Fred: Awesome.

CBD: What advice would you give to someone who wants to break into writing comic books?

Fred: Well, the only way I can really recommend it is the way I did it. And to a certain extent it’s the way Fraction did it and Bendis did it and a lot of other writers did it, is we made our own comics. We come from the independent world. So, it’s very hard today to get an editor to look at simply a pitch or an outline or a script. They wanna see a comic, they wanna see you’ve proven that you can tell a story in comics. In a sense that you’ve already paid your dues working your way up in the industry. So that would be my- that to me would be my own advice. Chummy up to the best artist you can find and produce a great comic together.

David: Well, that sounds like sound advice. Thanks for all your time today, Fred. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you today.

David Diep is a News Editor at ComicBookDaily and is an assistant manager at Big B Comics in Hamilton, Ontario.

Ramon Perez Updated

As some of you may know, I have a terrible disease called Actuallyitis; where I use the word “actually” far too often. But! I may be beaten by Ramon in this regard, so listen on and we’ll take a final tally at the end!

CBD: Hello again, this is David Diep of ComicBookDaily with Ramon Perez; artist and writer of the webcomics: Kukuburi and ButterNutSquash and the artist of an upcoming graphic novel from Dark Horse based on the Green River Killings. It’s great to have you here with us today, Ramon.

Ramon: Oh, it’s great to be here man, thanks Dave.

CBD: Alright so, how’d you make your break into the comic book industry?

Ramon: Oh, that was a long climb actually [laughs]. I’ve been a freelance artist for about… oh must be 10 years now- 13 years and I’ve always been trying to edge my way into comics, it’s my first love. But you know- being- I always say being in the right place in the right time and I always seem to be getting positive feedback from the people I talk to. Various editors and other artists are always you know, looking at my portfolio and go; “Hey, you should be working” and I’ll be like “Great! When does that happen?” So my career took a tangent in the beginning; I went to role-playing game work and children’s books, magazine work, editorial stuff for newspapers. So I kind of really just got a chance to fine tune my abilities a lot before I actually made it into comics and that kind of happened as a fluke. My first connection came when I worked on the inking for The Incredibles for Dark Horse Comics; the movie adaptation. Basically, I was called by the artist; who was also a story boarder on the movie and I went to school with his wife.

CBD: Oh, so you met him that way? (David: Wow, that truly was a pointless interruption by yours truly, Pete must be rubbing off on me)

Ramon: Yeah, he always liked my inking work and they were having trouble finding an inker he was satisfied with to go over his pencils. So he suggested me and I made contact with-they- Dark Horse contacted me and that just kind of evolved into a relationship there. Having that under my belt, going to conventions, meeting people, networking and you know. That’s when I began to learn it’s your portfolio but also the social networking you do. Like at the shows, going to the bar and having a round of drinks with a few editors, hanging out with other artists and other writers. I began to slowly develop a relationship over the years and it’s like work began to funnel towards me. And you know, it’s a slow climb, but I’m kind of happy that way. All my bad art is kind of hidden in my past  [laughs] my abilities were more fine tuned when I entered the scene and I’m pretty happy with most of the stuff I worked on, so in that respect.

CBD: That’s right (David: That’s right? Yeesh, I gotta work on my topic transition skills), so you’ve done some work for Marvel and DC now. You did the JSA classified issues, the War of King one, a few issues here and there.

Ramon: Yeah, I did that. That was a quick- it was an online thing, I guess they published it recently. I also did some inking on NYX over Kalman Andrasofszky and-

CBD: Are there any titles over there that you would like to work on? As kind of the regular run artist? (David: Yes, I did indeed accidentally and quite rudely interrupt Ramon, but it’s kind of hard to backpedal after doing that!)

Ramon: I dunno, I’ve never really thought about that. I’ve always had a fascination with obscure characters, old quirky characters. With Marvel for example, I would love to work on Mr. Miracle and Big Barda of all characters. Everyone would be clamoring for Spider-Man, I would be happy with Mr. Miracle. At DC, I think there’s a little part of me that wants to work on Batman. I grew up with the character and you know…more so the TV Batman [laughs]

CBD: With the old Adam West? (David: My apologies to Mr. West, the word “old” slipped out of my mouth)

Ramon: [laughs] Yeah, which is a far cry from the current comic book version of Batman.

CBD: Are you sure you just don’t want to draw Batman doing the Bat-Tutsi?

Ramon: That would be pretty awesome, actually. I was actually-I’m going to be attending a con in France later this fall and their request; from the convention was to illustrate a piece of Batman; a Batman piece they could sell as a print. Part of me just wants to draw Adam West sitting in a lounge chair with the Bat-costume hanging on a coat hanger-

CBD: While smoking a pipe kind of thing?

Ramon: Yeah [laughs] I don’t know if they would go for that.

CBD: Is this one you are going to in addition to the one in Poland, I believe? (CBD Fact: The convention is called KOMIKS FESTIWAL)

Ramon: Yes, I’m going to be doing about…I haven’t really counted yet, but probably 8 or 10 shows.

CBD: All in Europe?

Ramon: Yeah, all in Europe. Well, there will be 2 in the U.K; one in London and one in Leeds. Thoughtbubble is one and the other one is…I can’t remember offhand..it’s..it’s more of an expo that lasts a few weeks. I think it’s called Comica.

CBD: Right, just for future reference, just in case you ever have to answer this question again, Mr.Mar- Mr. Miracle and Big Barda are DC characters actually; not Marvel ones.

Ramon: Oh! Geez yeah that’s- sorry. I’m- been a long week of late nights but yeah so.

CBD: Hitting those deadlines?

Ramon: Yeah, too many deadlines my brain is not working right. I think for Marvel it would just be X-Men really. I love team dynamics.

CBD: The big teams, the biggest team of guys that got the mutants? (Dave: Yeesh, I have no clue what I meant to say there. I am sure it was an awesome statement that didn’t come out right)

Ramon: Yeah, them or I think Alpha Flight would be another. The Canadian side of me wanted a go at it.

CBD: Alpha Flight!? The underdogs!

Ramon: I’d want to go in there and do it right, because I mean Alpha Flight has gotten the shaft for so many years on their book. It’s just like; come on!

CBD: They showed up in the Avengers just to be killed.

Ramon: Yeah, exactly! During the big crossover wasn’t it? And I’m like; come on! These guys have gotten the short end of the stick for so long. Let’s give them some love for a change.

CBD: I guess you know, except for Wolverine, we’ve got nothing good to come out of Canada in Marvel.

Ramon: [laughs] yeah, exactly.

CBD: I’m sure they see us as nothing but pine trees up here.

Ramon: Yeah, it’s a big forest up here; we’ve got nothing much else. Polar bears roaming all over the streets of Toronto.

CBD: And Maple Syrup vendors all over the place. (CBD Fact: Maple Syrup is delicious)

Ramon: Pretty much, yeah. It’s just funny. So yeah , that’s right. Mr. Miracle is DC, he would be my first go. Pretty much any of the Fourth World characters; Forever People or-

CBD:  The Kirby Stuff pretty much.

Ramon: Yeah, New Gods, I would love to do that kind of stuff. His character designs were phenomenal and just kind of quirky you know and the fact that Death is a guy on skis; really that’s kind of peculiar.

CBD: The Black Racer.

Ramon: Yeah, if you can make it work. I mean come on, that’s brilliant.

CBD: As mentioned on your website, one of your webcomics; ButterNutSquash which actually returned from a hiatus, has joined Kukuburi as part of the Transmission X project stuff. How’d you get involved with those guys?

Ramon: To be honest, I’ve been involved since the beginning. I was one of the, if you want to call it “founding” members. I just came in late because I was busy designing all of the web interfaces, so my time was taken up building the site and helping with the behind the scenes work. My own project was falling behind, so I ended up being launched with their second wave.

CBD: Ah, so that explains why they actually consider you the second wave on their site.

Ramon: Yeah, so it’s- but I’ve actually been there since day one. It’s interesting too, one of the guys who just joined T-X; Eric Kim who came in with Streta which premiered on September 9^th, he was actually a founding member too, but due to obligation and work, he had to kind of-

Ramon Perez and Rob Cloughler creators of the webcomic Butternut Squash

CBD: Step back?

Ramon: Step back. So it’s kind of funny. The core launch of people; maybe two, I think Andy Belanger and Arthur Dela Cruz were part of the original crew and guys like Karl Kerschl and Cameron Stewart came in afterwards, but they were there from the beginning. So it’s an interesting little kind of backstory.

CBD: How’d you guys actually start the crew?

Ramon: It was just one day kind of sitting down with- it was actually myself and Eric Kim and Kalman Andrasofszky who hasn’t done anything with T-X yet but hopes to one day. We were sitting around coffee and just kind of bantering about doing something for- having an avenue to showcase our stories and the actual original inception was the idea of doing a magazine (David: I am going to cheat and count the word “actual” as an “actually”). Like an anthology magazine, bringing back the old school Creepy and Eeries. That kind of format where you have short stories and stuff like that. As we did research, we were like “whoa, there’s a lot of overheard there” you know; marketing and advertising and then slowly the gears began to turn and Eric Kim actually decided to take it as a web initiative and so then he collected myself and Kalman again and Belanger and Arthur De La Cruz and then Scott Hepburn joined up. We’re- a lot of us share a studio in Toronto here too and so we’re creating and doing all this stuff. And then you have guys like Cameron who are in the studio and kind of look over go “Hey, what are you guys doing over there?” He’s like “I’ve got some ideas, what about- could I?” So the group grows. It’s like the artists in Toronto are going to have to social network so then you have like Karl Kerschl who joined our studio and we saw the energy happening with that. You’re like “Come on up! Come on aboard” and it sort of organically grew as you see another guy at the table across from you doing something, creating something that is unique and his own and it sort of inspires you to do your own thing. So I think it was kind of infectious really all of us, like I said, 5 of us all share a studio here, but we also have lunch every week with 4 or 5 other artists from Toronto and creators who also became inspired like “hey, do you mind in onboard on that?”. And so it was pretty much a group of friends just kind of coming together and finding a way to kind of have some place to tell their own stories.

CBD: So do you guys see yourselves growing to a massive studio of like 100 people one day?

Ramon: [laughs] I hope not. I think we’re looking at keeping it relatively small. Like right now, we’re 5 people in the studio and Cameron and Karl have moved to a separate studio now in Montreal. A couple of the other guys work out of their house, but I think we see ourselves as kind of maybe- I can’t see us- I think we’re keeping ourself comfortable and small. We don’t want ourselves getting lost in a sea of creators, so I can’t see- eventually maybe going larger than 15 or 20 creators at a time. There will always be turn around as well. Maybe 1 or 2 will stop their projects as their story finishes, a couple new fresh faces might come in and lend their visions. Maybe those creators then who finish their stories might come back and have new creative ventures. I think we’re going to keep it small though. Nothing like; for example, if you go to Keenspot or these other web collectives that have hundreds upon hundreds of comics. I don’t think we want to go that route. We just want to keep it fairly tight. People we know, friends for the most part. That way everybody knows everybody. It has a kind of family-community vibe to it.

CBD: Going back to ButterNutSquash, why did it take it so long to get onto the Transmission-X site?

Ramon: Well recently, we were part of the Dayfree collective when we first started and technically we were part of them until two months ago. And I think for a while, I didn’t want to just automatically assume that I was bringing that project over.

CBD: Right

Ramon: So it had a life of its own. It was very separate. I didn’t want people to- I wanted to keep Kukuburi separate too. It was aimed at a different audience When we did the hiatus with ButterNut and we did a lot of touring with T-X in the summer trying to promote the individual creators. It became difficult to promote ButterNut as a separate entity, so it was- it was the logical choice for me in the beginning, but I think I just delayed it for probably silly reasons. Eventually I was just you know, makes perfect sense to bring it over you know. Everybody knows Rob; Rob who I do ButterNutSquash with everybody knows him well. He’s friends with everybody else, so it’s a natural fit. We’ve been part of the Dayfree collective like I’ve said for ages, but we’ve never actually showed with them at shows. They usually have their own tables and stuff like that, but for some reason we just never kind of gelled with that group. And they’re all great guys, but we just never connected.

CBD: You just weren’t at the cool table I guess.

Ramon: [laughs] Well, they were at the big table and we were at the little kiddy table in the corner. It was just a natural migration. It took a lot longer than it should have, but with the half years break in between- when ButterNut took a year off, it was a natural way to get there, now is the perfect time.

a sample of Perez and Coughler's Butternut Squash

CBD: How does the scripting between yourself and Rob work, actually? You’re mainly on the art duties. Do you do the writing with him?

Ramon: Yeah, we both write. I maybe plot a little more. I’ll think of the overarching story elements and stuff like that, but we just sit down and we have our ideas; he has his ideas, I have my ideas and we just sit and banter. We bounce them off each other; Rob has an idea and I’ll go “Oh, that’s fantastic. Let’s go with it” We’ll make each other laugh and say “that’s gold” and file that one away. And then if I put something forward he’ll be like “oh, that’s stupid” and I would be like “alright”. We’re a good sounding board for each other. We have very similar sense of humor and if we- if one of our ideas make the other guy laugh, it’s a good way to go. And if one falls on deaf ears, you go “alright, maybe that wasn’t such a great idea”. Or maybe I have an idea that’s kind of mediocre and by him coming in, he kind of punches it up a few levels or vice-versa. It’s a very cool dynamic. It’s very smooth sometimes but other times it can be butting heads as you try to force your ideas in there. But I think it actually makes for better material in the end because we’re like each other’s editors; possibly keeping each other on our respective toes.

CBD: So it’s very fine tuned. The writing afterwards; the final product.

Ramon: Yeah, we basically knock- sit down, knock out the idea. It’s very rough and then I take them and I go plot them out, I pace them out and draw them. And then we go back to the drawing board and script them. They’re never scripted beforehand; it’s almost like doing it the old Marvel way, where we have a rough idea. We know the punch line, the vague steps to the punch line and then once it’s drawn out, we go back in as writers then and sit down and we go through and script it properly.

CBD: So now that it’s officially back, can you give us any idea on what you and Rob have in store for us?

Ramon: Right now, we’re just going to use the remainder of the year to wrap up old storylines. Because obviously there’s a whole bunch of things left hanging when we went off the air last year around this time. So we’re just going to try to wrap relationships up and then we’re hoping in the new year, to go to three times a week. We really want to make a push to take ButterNut to where it should have been ages ago, but we just never had the time or the ability to do it or take it to that next level. So we really wanna kind of make it more- you can develop more stories and punch lines without every week having everything hanging on a week by week basis. With three days a week, you can play with a little more or you can put in lighter things that might not work all the time just because you’re waiting another week for the next episode. So we wanted to develop the characters and make them work. Just go back to the more punch line driven stuff which we kind of went away from for a little bit. Have some fun with them. We’ve got silly things waiting to happen with Andy, Ramon and Rob; the characters obviously. And make it happen; dating sprees and you know. There’s one storyline where my character will encounter a porn studio in his building and some weird tangents will happen there. And this is all based on reality. I was walking to my home one day and there’s this porn studio around the corner from me. I was like “oh ho, what’s this?”

CBD: Did you try to walk in on the filming?

Ramon: Well, I was walking down the hallway and I hear this very orgasmic scenario going on and I’m like “wow, someone’s having a good time”

CBD: Orgasmic scenario, eh? (CBD Fact: David’s left eyebrow rose while saying this)

Ramon: I just hear these moans and groans and I’m like “ho ho, this is pretty outrageous” and then I hear “aaand cut”. I was like “Cut?” I was just standing by this door listening and I hear the director getting up and then I’m walking out of the building and I run into my superintendent. I’m like “I just walked out and I heard this”. “Oh yeah, that’s a porn studio”. I’m like “There’s a porn studio in my apartment…rock and roll”.

CBD: So if this comic thing doesn’t work out for you, you’ve got a new career in I guess…porn?

Ramon: Yup, they already have my headshots. But yeah, so we have odd things like that where we just go “oh my god, there’s so many possibilities where we can take that”. There’s all kinds of little scenarios like that, that spawn various ideas that have been written down, but haven’t been attended to yet. So over the next year, we hope to just really push the limits, get ourselves out there a little bit more, push the characters and make it a little more kind of raunchy if you will. We kind of played it safe for a while, so I think we just kind of want to get back out there and get back in touch with what the Squash was all about.

CBD: The raunch?

Ramon: Yeah, the stupidity, the cheese- whatever you want to call it. Just guys being guys having fun. Being honest about it and poking fun at it at the same time.

CBD: Speaking of raunch…shesmykindofgirl.com (CBD: This site is probably NSFW, unless you work in a porn studio). What to say…it’s kind of ah…how’d you get that started? (David: Real smooth right there…real smooth.).

Ramon: That was- many of us do a- we used to do a- that obviously hasn’t been updated in months I think. But it began as…on Fridays, most of the time in the studio when we’re not as crazy busy as we are now, we’ll have a little draw-off we call Girl Friday. We just draw a pin-up girl. Something to just chill out. It’s not a work obligation, it’s not anything, so that kind of spawned that website. We had all these great pin-ups, why not give them a home? Get them out there and have somewhere to showcase them. So that’s essentially how shesmykindofgirl.com came out. All of the pictures up there are most of our girl Friday sketch-offs and though I think 8 or 9 of mine on that site are from an ad campaign I did for a porn company about a year or two ago.

CBD: How’d you do things for porn companies?

Ramon: It just kind of fell in my lap. [Laughs] They were like “Hey, you wanna draw pretty girls?” How can I say no?

CBD: Wow, I was gonna have a joke about the site being for lonely guys on Friday nights, but you’ve gone and killed it right there.

Ramon: [laughs] No no, we do them during the day and then go out Friday night.

CBD: So, the Green River Killer Project. You’re working on that alongside Jeff Jenson; the son of the original investigator on the Green River project. How’d you land that gig?

Ramon: That came through Sierra; my editor at Dark Horse. I met Sierra about a year before and gave her my portfolio. She knows many of the guys at our studio and we’ve hung out with her at various cons. We met at the various conventions, I gave her my portfolio, so she just called me up one day and she just teases me with an offer. “Hey, would you be willing to work on this crime- true crime noir kind of book?” And I’m like “ohh, that’s one of my passions.” My first story idea for Transmission X was actually a crime noir which I ended up shelving. So I was like “whoa, this might be an opportunity to do that as a warm up, kind of play that field before I jump into my own crime noir in the future. And once I kind of expressed interest, she laid down the actual story and she sent me the outline of the book and the first prologue script for the story. I sat down and read it rather quickly and I was hooked. I was like “this is amazing”. It’s some of the best comic scripting I’ve read in ages and it sucked me in. And the fact that these are real people with stories of real people I was peering into added that much more visceral quality to it. It really sung to me. Then talking to Jeff afterwards, finding out that he’s the actual son of the investigator who hunted down Gary Ridgeway over the years and caught him over a multi-year period. I couldn’t put it down; I quickly jumped on it.

CBD: The graphic novel promises to be a behind the scenes look at the events. Did you have to do a lot of reference and research for this? Like look at crime scene photos, that kind of thing?

I did go to Seattle earlier this year and I met with Jeff and his father. And his father took us to various sites where bodies were found and talked to us about the investigation. I got to see their home and I got to see the place where- the actual story takes place the first five days or four days after, I can’t recall exactly, of the capture of Gary Ridgeway, so it’s very much a deconstruction of him those first four days of interrogation. A lot of flashbacks are involved in the story, stuff like that-

Note the lack of a river of a river on the cover!

Ramon:

Ramon: Yeah, I got to see videos of these talks and I saw some crime scene photos of various sites, stuff like that. So I got to see some really grim groovy and hear some groovy story from Jeff’s father himself.

CBD: So when can we expect it out, actually?

Ramon: I believe- I was talking to Sierra the other day and I believe they’re looking at a fall 2010 release. Probably solicited sometime in the mid-summer, I think. Yeah, with a fall release next year.

CBD: Right. You’ve got a lot on your plate right now with two active webcomics, the big Green Killer project, how do you balance them all out?

Ramon: [laughs] I work a lot. I have Green River, I also have a monthly comic I do for Owl magazine called Max Finder and yeah then I have Green River and the two webcomics. I also have other odd jobs that float my way as well. It just comes down to just trying to time manage. I have days devoted- when things are going smoothly I have every Monday I work on Kukuburi, every Tuesday I work on ButterNut and then Wednesday is devoted to corporate work, Thursday is Owl and maybe Friday I go back and do some scripting. When things work out ideally, that’s how I break it down. I devote days of the week to certain projects. And when things aren’t working out so smoothly, it’s a juggling scenario where I’m working 3 hours on that, 2 hours on that, jump on this project. So hopefully- I’ve been working towards fine-tuning. I’ve actually been turning down work because I think it’s an old freelancer habit where you’re always trying to make sure there’s money in the coffers. So you’re always jumping at the next job, no matter how busy you are. And the next thing you know- when Kukuburi and ButterNut went on hiatus last year, that was because I was literally juggling twelve contracts over three months. I was like- I even look back at it now and I don’t know how I accomplished the amount of work I accomplished in those three or four months. And the recuperation since- and then eventually Kukuburi came back online and ButterNut suffered for a little bit longer because it took more time for Rob and I to get – to be able to find the time to hook up and bang out some ideas. But yeah, I’ve been focused more of late on trying to keep the projects to a minimum. So right now, I’m at four and that’s more than enough to keep me busy and two of them are on my own and two of them are for corporate clients. So as long as I keep them happy and pay my rent so that I have time to work on my own stuff as well. Maybe eventually I can pare it down to three and eventually just two and then maybe just my own stuff whether it be the crime book or Kukuburi or ButterNut or one of the other dozen ideas I have in my little black book.

CBD: For your drawing, what kind of materials do you use?

Ramon: I’m pretty traditional for the most part. I usually mix up the materials between- I mean depending on the look of a project I’m working on. So for example; Green River Killer is very much a loose brush style, so it’s Indian ink with Sable brush. While Kukuburi, I wanted a very clean crisp style, so that’s all inked by using Staedtler fineliners, like just little markers. I’ve also used quill in the past. It really just depends on the project. But I’m pretty much traditional. I don’t do any inking digitally or anything like that. It’s all brush, quill or pens and then I do all my colouring on the computer right now with Photoshop. Though, I would like to get back to doing more traditional colouring. Before I got into comics, I used to do a lot more painting. I would love to bring back more watercolor, wash painting into my stuff.

CBD: Comic series. Are you reading right now?

Ramon: Ah, right now, ongoing stuff…very little actually. I’m reading Hellboy; the Fegredo illustrated Mike Mignola arc right now and that’s coming out rather slowly. What’s the mainstream stuff…I’m trying to think. It’s kind of a blur for the most part. I pick up a lot of Immonen’s books here and there and flip through them and- I’ve been buying a lot of old collections. The Creepy and Eerie collections being put out by Dark Horse.

CBD: Oh, those massive hardcover guys?

Ramon: Yeah, I’ve been really going back to a lot of that stuff. I picked up Mazzucchelli’s new book…I can’t remember the name right now…

Voice of God: Asterios Polyp (David: I honestly don’t know who said that, so I will attribute this to the voice of God.)

Ramon: Asterios Polyp and that was a phenomenal book. Darwyn Cooke’s adaptation of The Hunter as well.

CBD: That was a fantastic read.

Ramon: So I’ve been leaning more towards larger collections or just new graphic novels. I don’t really collect much on a monthly basis anymore. The last thing I was collecting in that respect was 100 Bullets.

CBD: Which recently finished its run in trade and single issues.

Ramon: Exactly, so a lot of the stuff I was collecting has actually wrapped up. So I’m kind of without any ongoing stuff for the most part. I’ll pick up a random here and there. I picked up an issue recently of Batman and Robin with Gorilla Grodd- wait not Batman and Robin, Batman and Superman. The Gorilla Grodd where he takes over. I think it’s a future alternative story or something like that, having a lot of fun. But yeah, it’s mostly whatever catches my eye on the shelf. I don’t read anything regularly anymore.

CBD: Right, any advice for those hoping to get into the comic book industry?

Ramon: I think it’s the cheesiest advice you always hear, but it’s just drawing and perseverance. Part is talent but part is putting yourself out there and talking to people and going to these shows, networking and meeting and shopping your portfolio around. Also, making those social connections that hopefully pay off in the future.

CBD: Well, thanks for all your time today, Ramon. It’s been a pleasure speaking to you.

Ramon: Oh, no problem, it’s been great.

CBD: Hope to talk to you again when the Green River Killer book comes out.

I hope you guys enjoyed this little conversation between Ramon and I. You can check out Ramon and the other Transmission-X guy’s work at www.txcomics.com and www.shesmykindofgirl.com. Don’t forget to check out Ramon’s travel blog as he tours around Europe at http://blog.ramonperez.com/.We’ll see you next time for the next interview! And by the way, final score? David: 4 actually to Ramon’s 17! Woohoo!

David Diep is the News Editor at ComicBookDaily and an assistant manager at Big B Comics in Hamilton, Ontario. He is fond of maple syrup and pancakes.

Agnes Garbowska

The ever so cheery Agnes on the left and the just as cheery Shelley on the right

Shelley: Hey, Shelley Smarz here. I’m here with- how do you pronounce your last name?

Agnes: Gar-Bow-Ska

Shelley: Garbowska? Agnes Garbowska. Who has just released the prequel to You, Me Zombie which is all kinds of awesome. I’m sorry; I’m going to have to say I’m kind of a screaming fangirl. But it’s okay. So I’m just gonna ask a few rudimentary questions. Congratulations on the new book, when is the next installment coming out?

Agnes: Right now, I actually don’t know when issue one will be released. I’m done laying out the whole issue so I can get it done pretty quick, but I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to self-publish it or if I want to try and find a publisher for it, but I can guarantee you there will be an issue one and it will be where the story started and she wakes up in this crazy world.

Shelley: Awesome, how did you-where did you get the idea? (You will note that all Comic Book Daily interviewers have a habit of using the word “awesome” a lot. Probably because comics are so…so awesome?)

Agnes: Well, as a kid, I used to love horror movies. Zombies, vampires, ghouls, goblins, you name it, I loved it. But they always creeped me out, I had nightmares. So I thought; “wouldn’t it be fun to create a zombie book that’s for all ages that might scare the kids a little bit, but not enough to give them sleepless nights”.

Shelley: Awesome. So what’s your favourite scary movie?

Agnes: Oh my goodness, that is a very good question. Well, it’s not really scary, but it’s more funny, I love Shaun of the Dead. It’s one of my favourite movies of all time and I can just keep watching it over and over. It’s a little scary, but it’s sooo hilarious.

Shelley: Oh, that’s one of my all-time favourites. Why do you like comics?

Agnes: I grew up on comics. One of my mom’s ex-boyfriends actually gave me a comic one day and he went “here”. I was like “what is this?” and he went “oh, it’s a comic book”. And it was actually an X-Men book and I read it and I was hooked from an early age. He just kept buying and buying them for and I became a collector and to this day I just love comic books.

Shelley: Favourite comic titles?

Agnes: Ummm…right now, I have to say Green Lantern and the Blackest Night. I am hooked on that book and every month I’m just waiting for the next issue to come out.

Shelley: Oh it’s so good. I’ve never read Green Lantern before; he’s a huge fan (Pointing to Pete). And kind of got me into it, so I’m kind of enjoying it myself. How did you-did-was art and writing your dream when you were little as a chosen career, or did you fall into it later on or how did you get into comics?

Agnes: Well, I’m actually an only child and I’m actually from Poland so when I came to Canada, I didn’t know any English and I couldn’t communicate with anyone, so all I did really was sit around and watch cartoons. My mom said all I did was always draw while I was watching T.V and try to draw what I was seeing and she said that I’m just- loved it from an early age and kept drawing through grade school. I took some art classes in high school and I continued through college and I just kept doing it. It’s what I love. I just love letting my imagination go.

Shelley: Oh wow. Who are your influences?

Agnes: Umm, oh my goush. Oh my goush. I mean oh my gosh! [Laughs] Chris Bachalo is a huge huge influence of mine. I love Francis Manapul’s work. Even before we started dating I thought he was a pretty cool artist even though I didn’t know much of his work, I thought it was totally totally awesome and I’m in love with what’s he doing now (CBD Fact: Yes, sorry to disappoint the fans out there, this lady has been snatched up by up and coming superstar arist; Francis Manapul). There’s some writers that just inspire me to keep doing it. I’m a huge Gail Simone fan, whatever she writes, I WILL read it. I have read so many of her titles; I’m going to continue reading more into the future.

Shelley: Awesome (CBD Fact: We get bonus points if we can work the word “awesome” into interviews 20 times). And do you have any advice for people who want to break into the industry? Of things you would know now that you wish you knew then type of stuff?

Agnes: Um I guess so. If you really love what you’re doing, do it. But you really gotta work hard and don’t expect things to fall into your lap. You gotta work hard and if you want it, go out there, do it. Just talk to people. My best advice is: always be polite. You never know who you are going to meet and just talk to everyone around you because you just never know and some of my greatest industry contacts; I met by total fluke because I thought they were awesome people. I love talking to them and I found out they were a little more than just a person down the street that I just happened to talk to. And go to conventions! You never know who you can meet at a convention and talk to other artists. Talk to everyone.

Shelley: Great, thank you so much for your time and…awesome!

David Diep is the News Editor for ComicBookDaily.com and an Assistant Manager at Big B Comics in Hamilton, Ontario.