Category Archives: Interviews

Tyler Chin-Tanner Discusses DEAD BEATS II: LONDON CALLING

By Industry News, Interviews
On the heels of DEAD BEATS: A MUSICAL HORROR ANTHOLOGY, A Wave Blue World continues the horror collection success with a second volume.
 
The fan-favorite Shoppe Keeper crosses the pond in search of even more mysterious artifacts and musical instruments with a haunted past. So put on your favorite album, pull up a chair, and immerse yourself in a collection of 24-chilling tales that will have you questioning everything you think you know about music. 

For those who aren’t familiar, can you tell us what readers can expect from Dead Beats 2?

TYLER CHIN-TANNER: Dead Beats is a musical horror anthology centered around the enigmatic Shoppe Keeper, the proprietor of a record shop filled with haunted musical instruments and other strange artifacts. She serves as the narrator, much like Rod Serling from The Twilight Zone or the Crypt Keeper from Tales of the Crypt, introducing each story to the reader.

How did this project come about? What inspired this anthology?

TYLER CHIN-TANNER: This project was the brainchild of editors Eric Palicki and Joe Corallo. I had already worked with Eric on the anthologies This Nightmare Kills Fascists and All We Ever Wanted (both published by A Wave Blue World). And Joe was a co-editor on Mine! the benefit anthology for Planned Parenthood.

They were tossing around ideas for the theme of a new anthology and both horror and music were possibilities so they kind of came together like chocolate and peanut butter as the perfect combination.

What was the process for creating a horror anthology like this?

TYLER CHIN-TANNER: The most important thing is to make sure all the creators stay within the parameters of the theme while still having the freedom to tell their own story. But it’s also important to monitor the topics and make sure there isn’t too much overlap. We don’t want too many repeated instruments, locations, or twists.

How does Volume 2 differ from Volume 1?

TYLER CHIN-TANNER: The subtitle for the sequel is London Calling as a nod to The Clash album and because in the book, the Shoppe Keeper heads to London in search of new and mysterious artifacts. Most of the stories take place in the U.K. or Europe and there’s a bit more of a historical perspective in each tale.

In terms of audience, who is Dead Beats for?

TYLER CHIN-TANNER: Obviously, it’s for fans of both horror and music, but I wouldn’t say any reader would have to be a serious fan of either in order for this to appeal to them. It’s a pretty broad take in terms of musical tastes. And the horror is more spooky than anything else. Some mature themes for sure, but not a lot of gore or adult content.

What are you hoping readers will take away from this title?

TYLER CHIN-TANNER: We’re hoping that people see that the comics and graphic novels are a great way to read about a number of different genres. Sure, horror has a long history in this medium, but who would have thought that music and comics went together so well? And here we are, back with a second volume of Dead Beats, and this one’s better than ever.

ABOUT THE CREATOR • From his early careers in teaching and humanitarian aid work, Tyler Chin-Tanner took the leap into his lifelong passion for comics attending The Kubert School from 2003 to 2006 and co-founding A Wave Blue World with his wife Wendy in 2005. Publishing through AWBW, Tyler wrote a number of graphic novels including New York Times featured American Terrorist and edited several anthologies such as All We Ever Wanted, art books like Punkrock* Jazz, and creator-owned projects including Kismet, Man of Fate.

The Truth Needs No Embellishment to be Horrifying

By Industry News, Interviews, , , ,

One of the greats in the field of true crime literature, Harold Schechter (Deviant, The Serial Killer Files, Hell’s Princess), teams with five-time Eisner Award-winning graphic novelist Eric Powell (The Goon, Big Man Plans, Hillbilly) to bring you the tale of one of the most notoriously deranged serial killers in American history, Ed Gein.

Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? is an in-depth exploration of the Gein family and what led to the creation of the necrophile who haunted the dreams of 1950s America and inspired such films as Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs.

Painstakingly researched and illustrated, Schechter and Powell’s true crime graphic novel takes the Gein story out of the realms of exploitation and gives the reader a fact-based dramatization of these tragic, psychotic and heartbreaking events. 

ERIC POWELL is a writer and artist from Nashville, Tennessee, who has contributed work for every major publisher in the comics industry. Powell has spent his career creating and promoting the validity and importance of creator-owned comics, including his own critically acclaimed series The Goon, which launched in 1999 and quickly became an indie hit with a die-hard cult following. In collaboration with renowned filmmaker David Fincher and directors Tim Miller and Jeff Fowler of Blur Studio, Powell is now working to bring The Goon to life on the big screen as an animated feature film.

HAROLD SCHECHTER is a professor of American literature and culture. Renowned for his true-crime writing, he is the author of the nonfiction books Fatal, Fiend, Bestial, Deviant, Deranged, Depraved, and, with David Everitt, The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. He is also the author of Nevermore and The Hum Bug, the acclaimed historical novels featuring Edgar Allan Poe. He lives in New York State.
 
Check out our interview with Eric Powell and Harold SChechter below!

Diamond Talks with Stephanie Phillips About NUCLEAR FAMILY

By Industry News, Interviews

Stephanie Phillips joined Diamond Book Distributors during the Publisher Weekly US Book Show to discuss her upcoming dystopian graphic novel from AfterShock Comics, NUCLEAR FAMILY.

NUCLEAR FAMILY takes place in America in 1957. Elvis dominates the airwaves and apple pie is served after every meal. But, with the dark cloud of nuclear holocaust looming, Korean War vet Tim McClean’s major concern is taking care of his family in the atomic age.

When the first bomb does drop on an unexpecting Midwest city, Tim and his family find themselves plunged into a strange new world, where what’s left of the United States has gone underground while continuing to wage war on Russia with unthinkable tactics.

Stephanie Phillips is an American writer known for comics and graphic novels such as HARLEY QUINN, BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT, SENSATIONAL WONDER WOMAN, SUPERMAN, TAARNA, and THE BUTCHER OF PARIS. Her stories and comics have appeared with DC Comics, AfterShock Comics, Dark Horse, Oni Press, Top Cow/Image Comics, Heavy Metal, Black Mask Studios, A Wave Blue World, and more. Stephanie is currently the writer for the ongoing Harley Quinn series at DC Comics with artist Riley Rossmo. 

Stephanie also holds a PhD in rhetoric and composition and and MA in English from the University of South Florida. She has taught writing and communication courses at the University at Buffalo, the University of South Florida, and the University of Tampa.

Outside of comics, Stephanie is a Muay Thai fighter and hockey player. She likes cats, old Westerns, and macaroni & cheese shaped like cartoons. 

Watch the full interview below!

Frank Forte and Jason Paulos Talk EEEK!

By Industry News, Interviews

JASON PAULOS exploded onto the Australian comics scene in 1989 with the first self published issue of ‘Hairbutt The Hippo’, the story of a hard boiled anthropomorphic private eye roaming the seedy underbelly of a future city. Over the years Jason has regularly contributed to Australian MAD magazine (over 100 pages of Hairbutt strips), DC comics (5 page Green Lantern story for Bizarro Comics book 2), Judge Dredd Megazine (wrote and drew 16 page horror story called ‘Easy Prey’) and published a dozen Hairbutt comics. He also drew for the Australian MAD Magazine. 

Asylum publisher Frank Forte and Jason Paulos catch up on publishing EEEK! Read the full interview below.

EEEK! is available through Diamond Book Distributors and all book wholesalers.

Book Solicitation:

This retro-style anthology of all-new horror tales is guaranteed to give you the eeries and the creepies! Taking a pinch of black humour from EC comics and mixing it with the art stylings of House of Mystery and Warren comics, EEEK! blends a heady broth that hits you like a burning incense stick to the retina. Jason Paulos delivers the goods with over 15 tales of revenge, zombies, vampires, ghouls and monsters. Each tale drawn in a different style reminiscent of the B&W horror mags of the 70’s and 80’s. In ‘Deadline of Death’ we witness rival comic artists dabbling with malevolent forces that arrive in the form of a chain smoking goatee wearing Satan. In Lights! Camera! Murder!, A lovesick starlet and a ruthless film director embark on a doomed love affair that ends in pieces! In “Easy Prey” A helpless girl, lost in the wilderness … but is she all that she seems? In “Head Trip” a hippie’s love for music goes horribly wrong. A must for fans of horror comics!

For those who aren’t familiar, can you tell us what readers can expect from EEEK?

JASON PAULOS: 5 to 8 page black and white horror tales in the style of ‘Joe Orlando era’ House of Mystery.

FRANK FORTE: When I saw the single issues of EEEK! I thought they’d make a great collection.  I’m a huge fan of vintage horror comics and Jason captured the 70s and 80s era of movement better than anyone.

How did this project come about? What inspired this graphic novel?

JP: The comics of my childhood.

What was the process for creating a horror anthology like this?

JP: The first batch of stories were created at work at my boring office job, literally winging it with nothing but a splash page and a catchy title.

FF: I thought EEEK! Was a great title for the comic and TPB. There have been many titles, tributes and copycats over the years, Eerie, Creepy, Haunts, Haunted Horror, The Creeps, Web Of Horror…but there’s only one EEEK!

In terms of audience, who is EEEK for?

JP: Anybody with a soft spot for old school horror comics anthologies and the comics artists of the 1970’s.

FF: yeah, we’re targeting fans of the old Eerie and Creepy collections, but a lot of the stories really have the vive of the DC Horror comics; House of Mystery, House of Secrets and Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion. So we hope to grab those fans. But there’s also a new generation of horror readers that maybe have already seen and read the old comics and reprints, and now want something new. This book is for them.

What are you hoping readers will take away from this title?

JP: A renewed sense of how comics are supposed to fun and not to be taken too seriously.

FF: We hope readers can have a good time delving into some creepy terrorific comics made to chill and eeek you. These tales have some great characters and unseen twisted ending that are both shocking and entertaining. The collection has some amazing art, all of which is done by Jason Paulos who has the amazing ability to change styles, so the art look a little different from story to story.  This gives the book the look and feel of an anthology collection drawn by a variety of artists, but it’s all Jason. EEEK! has a lighthearted razor’s edge but still reveals it’s horror roots as it cuts to the bone.

An Idiosyncratic History of The Medium

By DBD News, DIgital Review Copies, Industry News, Interviews

Equal parts Understanding Comics and From Hell, The Strange Death of Alex Raymond is a head-on collision of ink drawing and spiritual intrigue, pulp comics and movies, history and fiction. The story traces the lives and techniques of Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon, Rip Kirby), Stan Drake (Juliet Jones), Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), and more, dissecting their techniques through recreations of their artwork, and highlighting the metatextual resonances that bind them together.

In this interview, co-author and -illustrator Carson Grubaugh discusses working on The Strange Death of Alex Raymond. 

***

DIAMOND: For those who aren’t familiar, can you tell us what readers can expect from The Strange Death of Alex Raymond?

CARSON GRUBAUGH: It is a very difficult project to formulate an elevator pitch for. The best I have heard so far comes from our publisher, Sean Robinson, “Understanding Comics meets From Hell.” Or perhaps “Jodorowsky’s Dune, if his actual film had been half completed, then worked fully and seamlessly into the narrative and themes of the documentary.”

It is a gorgeously illustrated masterpiece from one of the great living masters of the medium (Dave Sim, not me!).

The book is a meta-textual account of Dave Sim’s evolving obsession with the car-crash-death of one of the greatest comic illustrators of all time, Flash Gordon creator, Alex Raymond. 

While exploring the suspiciously inconsistent accounts of the crash, Dave begins to piece together a speculative narrative that ties together professional rivalries, adulteries, the possible blackmailing of Gone With The Wind author, Margaret Mitchell, by Raymond’s writing partner, Ward Greene, Crowleyian occultism, etc.

We also spend a lot of time covering the technical aspects of Raymond’s photorealistic illustration style, the challenges of reproducing such work in print, and the history of Raymond’s influence on the field.

How did this project come about?

That story is actually a very large part of the book itself.

What I can answer more clearly is how the project came to me.

I have been a fan of Dave’s work since I first read the Cerebus graphic novels in the early 2000s. His follow up work, glamourpuss, blew my mind. The art in it was a real lesson in how to do everything I am prone to doing but way better. That book also introduced me to the genius of Alex Raymond, Stan Drake, and all of the other illustrators that are so important to The Strange Death of Alex Raymond (SDOAR).

When glamourpuss morphed into SDOAR I was absolutely on edge waiting for the book to come out. I would search the internet from time to time for news on the progress of the work and eventually read that Dave’s drawing hand had failed him. I saw he was looking at having other artists potentially finish the art for him in a post on the A Moment of Cerebus fan blog, which was run by Tim Webber, at the time. Through the blog I was able to contact Dave, send samples of my work, and do try-out pages for a “bridging sequence” Dave was planning for SDOAR. Those trial pages became the first four pages of the book as it exists now.

As our collaborative relationship grew, I moved on to finishing the art for the main portion of the book as well.

In 2020, Dave publicly walked away from the project and gave me permission to publish all his work, all of my work, and signed off on me writing my own ending. That is the book we are releasing.

A very convoluted story, but thematically important to the work itself.

Can you tell us more about the writing and art process behind this book?

SIMilarly convoluted; pun very much intended.

At first Dave did everything himself, when I came on board it depended on what part of the book we were working on.

For the bridging sequences Dave would give me a Marvel-Style script: “A comic book shop manager closes up the store.” I used that prompt to direct a photoshoot of our model for those sequences, real-life comic-store manager – now former – of Local Heroes in Norfolk, Virginia, Jack VanDyke. (We liked Jack so much we actually gave them their own forty-eight-page spin-off, You Don’t Know Jack: Two-Fisted Comic-Store Manager, which was successfully Kickstarted and released in 2020.)

All of those photos and my 12-page mock-up of how I thought the story should unfold were sent to Dave. He reworked the whole thing, which was a treat of a learning experience for me. From there I faithfully illustrated the pages based on his photo mock-ups.

For the main content of the book I would get to-scale photo mock-ups of each page along with a folder full of the highest resolution images of each element on the page as possible. Some of those high-resolution images came from Dave, most of them came from our research guy, Eddie Khanna, some I tracked down myself on the net. All these images were collaged together in Photoshop to match Dave’s layouts. Those digital collages we traced in Photoshop to capture the bare essential structural information then printed out in pure cyan ink. Over the blue-line print I could go straight to inks, and when scanned back in, it is easy to drop out the blue-line and have only inks left.

Dave’s photo layouts often came with lengthy annotations that would beat the pants off any Alan Moore panel description in a contest of length and depth of information. These were not “scripts” in any standard sense – as the mock-ups conveyed exactly what I needed to know about the visuals – but captured what I needed to know about Dave’s meta-textual intent for each page. Hopefully those, and all of Dave’s research notes/annotations, will soon be available at Eddie’s  SDOAR.com. I suspect there are thousands upon thousands of pages of annotations.

When Dave quit the book, I took over everything from writing to layout to the final art. I still feel like a clown, trying to fill those gigantic shoes.

What kind of obstacles did you face while putting this title together?

The methods Dave uses to communicate are trying for someone my age. He is all about faxes and phone calls. He won’t make decisions about art on a screen, so he requires a printed copy of anything before he can form an opinion about it. I just wanted to email everything back and forth. Receiving a fax of an 11” x 17” photo mock-up in my inbox wasn’t particularly helpful. These faxes could get forwarded to me from any of three different intermediaries, which often led to confusion and breakdowns in communication.

One of the three intermediaries was a hired employee of Dave’s, who would send digital files through e-mail, but that was a one-way street. I could get things from the employee but was not supposed to send anything back through that channel. Anything I wanted Dave to look at had to be sent to Alfonso Espinosa at Studio Com.IX Press, a print shop in Dave’s hometown. Dave would go in every Monday to get anything that had been sent so he could review it.

This process delayed revisions by weeks. Things that could have been solved in less than an hour through email could take two to three weeks, or more, using this process. Extremely frustrating for me, but the opposite would have been frustrating for Dave. So, his book, his rules.

There were also restrictions on when I could call or fax Dave. Sunday’s, and many hours every day were off limits for religious observations – Dave follows a daily Islamic prayer schedule – and a period from like…Wednesday evening through Friday morning, that he had set aside to work on another project, so he asked that no communication about SDAOR happen during whatever those particular hours were. Sadly, given my profession as a college educator those were often the best times for me, so that caused issues and delayed decisions being made.

The largest obstacle was Dave’s own reluctance to publish the book. This delayed the project for many years. We were supposed to do four separate volumes. The art for Volume One had been completed by the end of 2016. Dave delayed publication until he walked away in the summer of 2020. There was always one more thing that needed to be done before the book got published.

You would think Dave walking away would have been the biggest obstacle, but actually it cleared the way for Sean and me to control the future of the project, which is why the work is finally seeing publication. And thank goodness Dave has been so gracious about letting us do this and letting me end the book the way I see fit.

What would you say is the most rewarding part of having Strange Death of Alex Raymond published?

The fact that it is going to be on sales shelf means everything to me. I was an anxiously awaiting fan of this work for many years before I got involved. I offered my services, for free, because I wanted to see the work finished so badly.

This is all about making sure the world gets to see the amazing work Dave created. SDOAR is the work of an apex-level-creator doing the best work he has ever done, an absolute masterclass in the potential of the medium. The thought that it might never see the light of day tortured me. That I somehow get to be the guy to wrap it up and bring it to the market is totally baffling.

In terms of audience, who is this book for?

I think there will be multiple audiences who value the work for different reasons. Some possibilities:

Anyone who loves comics as a medium should love it. Dave’s mastery of the form is more powerful than it has ever been in these pages.

Anyone who loves occult horror stories should love it. The clear connection between Ward Greene, Aleister Crowley and William Seabrook, combined with the voodoo Dave thinks Greene was doing in his scripts for Raymond’s comics is chilling. I am scared to have even worked on the book!

Anyone who loves the history of comics, or historical comics, will love it. Dave brings back to light the stunning accomplishments of a long-neglected generation of comic masters and forms the ground floor for further historical research into the topic of photorealistic illustration in comics. He also unearths some bombshell information about the possible blackmailing of Margaret Mitchell by Ward Greene, which should appeal to historians of literature.

Anyone who enjoys autobiographical comics should love it as it is ultimately the account of a creator who got so deep into a work that he could not find his way out.

Any academic who loves post-modern meta-textual literary analysis should love it. The layers, and layers, and layers of visual and textual metaphor Dave builds are endlessly rich sources for study.

Lovers of black-and-white ink illustrations will be able to appreciate this book without ever reading a single word. Just flipping through it is a true joy. If you enjoy beautiful art, you will love this book. If you enjoy insanely detailed art, you will love this book.

If you like beautiful book production, you will love this book. Our publisher, Sean Robinson, is the absolute best when it comes to preparing line-work for press. The quality of the printing on this thing is going to raise the bar several levels. See any of Sean’s restoration work on the Cerebus trades for a good indication of what the man can do. So many artists deserve better reproduction than they get. The entire industry should study what Sean does on this book and aim for the caliber of production he delivers.

It is not an easy work, but it is a great work, so anyone who loves great works of art should own this book.

What are you hoping readers take away from Strange Death of Alex Raymond?

We could have easily Kickstarted this work, made a pretty penny, and avoided the work of a public release. There is enough of a built-in fan base for that. I insisted we must bring to the shelves, especially bookstore shelves. I personally love walking through a good comic shop or bookstore, seeing a big, thick, beautiful looking book I have never heard of picking it up, and having my mind blown open.

This book is one of those books. My greatest hope is that a good number of budding artists who have never heard of it stumble upon it, are shook to the core, exposed to the great legacy of photorealistic pen and ink art Alex Raymond sired, which Dave and I are feebly tried to carry the torch for, and go on to produce the first great piece of photorealistic graphic literature.

Please, come kick the pants off all of us, future-art-legend. I want to read your book so bad!!!

As an academic, it would thrill me to see some academic writing both about the book and building on the floor that Dave lays. If anyone does such work, PLEASE pass it on!

Personally, I learned that devoting one’s life entirely to big-A Art is a damned pursuit that one should weigh very carefully. So, as much as I want to read that photorealistic graphic masterpiece by the next generation master of this style, please don’t create it at the expense of healthy relationships with friends and family. Your graphic novels aren’t going to be there for you when it matters most.

Realistically, the work is densely packed with multiple possible interpretations, so please make your own sense of it.

About the Creator • Carson GRUBAUGH earned an MFA in Painting from the Cranbrook Academy of Art as well as BFAs in Fine Art and Philosophy from the University of California at Berkeley. He was named the Mercedes Benz Financial Services Emerging Artist of 2011, was a keynote speaker at the 2013 Difference That Makes a Difference Conference at the Open University, placed 3rd in the 15th Art Renewal Center Salon portraiture category, and has shown work in the US, Germany, England at venues such as The Cranbrook Museum of Art, Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, ABTART, Virginia Beach Museum of Contemporary Art, The Chrysler Museum, Museum of New Art, Sotheby’s NY and the European Museum of Modern Art among many others. 

Carson is currently a full-time Instructor of Art at Shelton State Community College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

‘Crossover’ Creative Team Discusses Their Ultimate Love Letters to Comics

By Industry News, Interviews,

Imagine everything you thought was fantasy… was real…

DONNY CATES and GEOFF SHAW reunite for an epic and historic series that’s Avengers: Endgame meets Cloverfield with a good dose of the questing of The Dark Tower series thrown in for good measure. In an interview with Comic Book Resources, the creators discussed the inspiration behind their love letter to the comics industry. 

When asked how the series came to fruition, Cates said: “Geoff and I were sitting around in my house the day that God Country came out. We had just done two signings here in Austin and had finally gotten back home, and we were just kind of sitting around reading comics and talking about what we wanted to do next. In my stack of comics, I had the latest Big Two crossover comics, and Geoff and I got to talking about what we would do if we ever had a chance to do one of those. I think I off-handedly said that seeing one of these events from the perspective of a normal person on the street would be really cool.”

Letterer John J. Hill added, “I think Crossover is way different than what everyone’s assuming it’ll be. Which is part of the fun of keeping a lot of the details under wraps for as long as possible. Whether you’re a huge fan of capes and tights titles or absolutely hate them, you’ll enjoy what’s in store.”

This mind bending series tells the story of a comic book summer event that was so colossal it open a portal into our world, making everything fantasy real. 

Crossover Volume 1 will be available everywhere June 1, 2021.  

Interview: Enter The Action-Packed Wasteland of ‘The 27 Run: Crush’

By Industry News, Interviews, ,

Humanity’s only chance against 27 towering Monsters and legions of voracious Crawlies is the Mech Pilot Beti and a telepathic dog named E.K. But Beti faces an even bigger challenge: the return of a long-lost love! 

Get ready for an action-packed stand-off that continues the series Steve Orlando (Wonder Woman) calls, “A wasteland tale energized with dark humor and fantastic creatures.”

The 27 Run: Crush will be available everywhere March 23, 2021. Click here to learn more.

An Interview with the Creators

Justin Zimmerman (writer/creator): THE 27 RUN: CRUSH is probably the most visually challenging project I’ve ever accomplished in the comic world, and that’s saying something. Fortunately, I was working with the coolest artists in the biz. And now that the Premier #1 issue is hitting the stands courtesy of A WAVE BLUE WORLD, it’s exciting to pull back the curtain a little bit on that challenge. For the intro issue, I wanted to come out swinging… to provide an introduction to Beti, her sidekick, and the insane new threat in one fell swoop. It was important to me that even the readers familiar with the world of THE 27 RUN would feel like they were thrown into the deep end. A really fun and beautiful deep end, but the deep end nonetheless!

Ethan Claunch (artist): Working with Justin is empowering. With a wealth of directing and writing experience behind him, he knows when to push you to do more and when to ease off. He has great energy and is constantly checking in to make sure you have what you need. Selfless and diligent, always taking your considerations into account. He gave me the freedom and confidence to experiment and simply create. We would bounce ideas back and forth trying to pin down certain emotional beats, action sequences, panel layouts, etc. He always listened to my input and treated me with respect. I don’t think you can ask for much more out of an author and fellow creator.

Fran Gamboa (colorist): Justin has a lot of passion for his stories, and comic history too. His projects aren’t the usual bulk pages you do in a couple of months. He believes in long-term project goals and growing from book to book. I think we work well and, after multiple projects together, we still have a blast defining color palettes and deciding how to treat action. 

JZ: The thing to remember about comics is that they are solitary… but also highly collaborative. At least, that’s how they should be. I come from the world of film, and when I work on a project, I can guarantee over half of my crew has worked with me for almost two decades, easy. It’s my hope to keep building those relationships in the comic world as well. And after a decade in this realm, so far so good! I’m so glad to be working with such talents!

Russ Brown (artist): Agreed! Okay, you asked about the process, so here it is: I inked this book directly into 11 x 17 Bristol with only very loose and very light blue-line pencil as a sort of scaffolding to work from. I use a variety of technical and brush pens, white gesso and white gel pens, all in various states of disrepair. It can be pretty unforgiving at times, but it’s my preferred method: seat-of-the-pants.

EC: It was a bit of experimentation with a bit of anxiety and a lot of excitement. I was given the OK to continue using digital pencils to traditional inks, and then back to the digital medium that I experimented with for a short story I drew for Justin in the ALL WE EVER WANTED anthology. It was great because I would get to a certain point where I wouldn’t want to stare at my tablet any longer, so I would transition to the more tactile experience of inking my digital pencils on smooth Strathmore Bristol. I’m still experimenting with this process, but it has proven beneficial for how I work. As I progress, everything becomes a bit more efficient and streamlined, and hopefully, the work will continue to improve. And Justin and I are already working on a new creator-owned project, so stay tuned…

FG: I’m always keeping in mind that I’m coloring a mixed-media blockbuster. So, I have to find a balance between the worlds of comic and animation… adding texture, grain, lens reflections, dust. All the kinds of things your eye read as “real action.” Energetic battle sequences between giant Mechs and Monsters are really fun to work with, of course. But I also enjoy the cockpit scenes between characters, with those bright screens and fun dialogue in the middle of pure devastation.

RB: I’m all for big Mech action, but drawing giant, hungry Monsters always gets me up in the morning. And then there were all those Crawlies… I was seeing them in my sleep! I mean, more so than I usually do. This book is intense!

EC: I’d recommend giving THE 27 RUN: CRUSH a look because, at its core, it’s simply fun and full of energy. The story is driven by strong characters that you grow to love and legitimately end up cheering for. It’s a colorful world Justin has created, and it’s even more evident when you see Fran’s spectacular work. And the talented Russ Brown too! Pick up a copy. You won’t regret it.

FG: The thing I’m most excited about with THE 27 RUN: CRUSH is reader reaction, of course! I think they’ll feel the amount of work and passion behind the scenes we all put into this. I hope they thrill to every page!

JZ: Beti’s companion, E.K., is based on my dog Buddy. He lived to be over thirteen years and passed away this December. THE 27 RUN: CRUSH is a tribute to his friendship, loyalty, and grace. For everything BIG about the book, I hope the little moments stand out. It’s bombastic, it’s funny, it’s nuts… but most of all, it’s about hope. And we could all use a little hope right about now.

Aftershock’s Miskatonic Explores an Occult Conspiracy in the 1920s

By Industry News, Interviews, , ,

Miskatonic Valley holds many mysteries – cultists worshipping old gods, a doctor deadset on resurrecting the recently deceased, a house overrun by rats in the walls – but none more recent than a series of bombings targeting the Valley’s elite.

These horrors reach a breaking point when the brilliant, hard-nosed investigator Miranda Keller is sent to stop the bombings. To J. Edgar Hoover, there can be no other explanation than those responsible for similar actions during the Red Scare of the 1920s…but when Miranda digs too deep, she uncovers an unimaginable occult conspiracy, one that may cost Miranda her job – and her sanity.

From writer Mark Sable (GODKILLERS, Graveyard of Empires) and artist Giorgio Pontrelli (Dylan Dog), MISKATONIC is a mix of historical crime fiction and Lovecraftian-horror that dives deep into the American nightmare.

“It takes what’s thrilling about famous Lovecraft stories such as ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’, ‘Herbert West: Re-Animator’ and ‘The Dunwich Horror’ (among others) but reworks them so that the characters that Lovecraft had issues with – like women – are center stage. At its heart though, it’s a kind of reverse X-files. Miranda is the highly capable but skeptical FBI agent, while Tom is the true believing ex-cop, traumatized by his contact with the supernatural,” said writer Mark Sable.

An Interview with Mark Sable

Diamond: How did Miskatonic come about as a project?

Mark Sable: I’ve always wanted to tell a Lovecraftian horror story.  The trick was figuring out how to make that story original and relevant.  One that embraced H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror but dealt with the misogynic, racism and xenophobia in his writing. 

It clicked for me when I read about J. Edgar Hoover’s Palmer Raids, the pre-cursor to America’s first Red Scare.  In 1919, anarchists tried to blow up Attorney General Mitchell Palmer and other prominent U.S. officials and businessmen.  In 1920 the government overreacted, and rounded up 10,000 Americans, detaining about a third of them and deporting hundreds.

This was run by J. Edgar Hoover, part of the then fledging Bureau of Investigation. During that same era, he tried to modernize the bureau.  Unfortunately, that also involved purging the Bureau of it’s few female agents – by the end of the 20’s they’d all be gone and another wouldn’t be hired until after his death in the 1970s.  All this took place at the same time as Lovecraft’s stories were set.

I saw a lot of parallels between Hoover and Lovecraft in terms of their views, I wondered what would happen if one of the last female FBI agents was sent to investigate a series of bombings that seemed to be a part of the Red Scare, but in reality were part of a Lovecraftian conspiracy.  Miskatonic answers that questions.

Diamond: What makes Miskatonic Valley so dangerous?

The Miskatonic Valley is the original “Lovecraft Country”, the location of most of his most prominent stories.  That means it’s filled with cultists capable of dark magic, half-human abominations, the monstrous offspring of extraplanar entities and mad scientists looking to resurrect the dead (whether they want to return or not).

And that’s just the supernatural.  Miskatonic asks whether those supernatural threats are more dangerous than a director of the proto-FBI looking to pin the crimes of these monstrous entities on anyone he deems “subversive”.

Diamond: Tell us about Miranda Keller. Why do we follow her through this story, specifically?

Lovecraft’s stories feature no female protagonists, and barely any women period.  Miskatonic is an attempt to reverse that.

Miranda is one of the last remaining women in the Bureau of Investigation, and under pressure to stop this new series of bombings in the Miskatonic Valley to keep her job.  She’s brilliant and just as capable of doing her job as any of her male counterparts, many of whom were corrupt.  But she’s also not above doing the dirty job of gathering dirt for Hoover’s secret blackmail files (which would turn out to be one of the largest collections of pornography by the time of his death).

Miranda is also a skeptic, and she’s got a kind of X-Files relationship with Tom Malone, the ex-NYPD protagonist of H.P. Lovecraft’s story “The Horror at Red Hook”.  The Mulder to her Scully, he’s a believer, traumatized by his prior encounters with the supernatural. 

Unlike Mulder, Malone would prefer to bury the truth by blaming it on Hoover’s perceived enemies.  He believing mankind can’t handle it.  Miranda would like to uncover it, even if it means risking Hoover’s wrath…and her sanity itself.

Diamond: How much of this is based on real life events?

Anything not supernatural is firmly rooted in historical events.  The bombings, J. Edgar hoover more concerned about radicals than bootleggers during prohibition, the deportations of immigrants and the removal of women from the organization that would become the FBI…it all happened at the same time Lovecraft was writing his story.  One of the last women FBI agents was not only fired, but committed to an insane asylum…the fate of many of Lovecraft protagonist.

What I think makes Miskatonic relevant is that not only is all of this largely overlooked, but it can be argued that history is repeating itself.  Terrorism, authoritarian government overreactions, crackdowns on immigration and those with opposing political views…all of that is still happening today.

PREVIEWSworld: What was it like working with artist Giorgio Pontrelli? What’s the creative process like between you two?

Giorgio is a phenomenal artist and collaborator.  His linework is deceptively simple.  With just a few brush strokes he can create compelling action sequences, truly disturbing images of horror and subtle emotional cues.  He’s in great company with Pippa Bowland whose colors ground the crime aspects of Miskatonic while imbuing the comic with Lovecraft’s sense of otherworldly horror.  You could say she’s the “Colour(ist) out of Space).  Letterer Thomas Mauer does a great job capturing the period and also meeting the challenge of coming up with fictional forbidden languages.  And Jeremy Haun and Nick Filardi created killer images as part of a murderer’s row of cover talent including Tony Harris, Tyler Crook and Peach Momoko.

Giorgio is in Italy, Pippa is in the U.K., Thomas is in Germany and I’m in the U.S., and that could have proved difficult, especially in this pandemic year.  I had to find a balance between giving all of them a tremendous amount of historical reference and getting out of their way so they had the space make the comic their own visually.  I didn’t want this to look like any other Lovecraftian comic.

Luckily, we had Aftershock editor Christina Harrington not only coordinating all this but contributing her own unique point of view.  Thanks to all of them it’s easily been one of the most creatively rewarding experiences.

Joe Carriker Discusses LGBTQ+ Inclusion and Superheroes

By Industry News, Interviews, , ,

Author Joe Carriker discusses his novel SACRED BAND with Francisca Goldsmith of Publisher Spotlight.

Rusty may have been a kid during that glorious age but he remembers his idol, Sentinel, saving lives and righting wrongs — until he was outed in an incredible scandal that forced him into isolation. When a gay friend of Rusty living in the Czech Republic goes missing, Rusty is forced to acknowledge that while the world’s governments claim that super teams are outdated and replaced by legal law enforcement, there are simply some places where the law doesn’t protect everyone — so he manages to find and recruit Sentinel to help him find his friend.

But the disappearance of the friend is merely one move in a terrible plot against queer youth. A team of supers may be old-fashioned, but this may be a battle requiring some incredible reinforcements.

Fore more information on SACRED BAND, click here. 

The Boys Interview: Garth Ennis Corresponds with Dear Becky

By Industry News, Interviews, , , , ,

It’s been eight years since writer Garth Ennis concluded his run on The Boys. Since that time, Ennis’ blistering take on superheroes (with co-creator with Darick Robertson), has gone from the comics’ controversial hot potato to criticially-acclaimed Amazon Prime TV show. The writer Garth Ennis, artist Russ Braun, and publisher Dynamite are returning for more! The new book is called The Boys: Dear Becky, and it promises to flesh out both the pre-history of The Boys, relive some classic moments, and move the series into the future.

In the following interview, Garth Ennis explains how this new book connects to the original run and more.

The Boys: Dear Becky

DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT
ISBN: 9781524119904
Price: $19.99
Genre: Superheroes
Ages: 16+

On Sale: February 23, 2020

 

DIAMOND: The original run of The Boys ended in 2012, after a whopping 90 total issues. Readers who enjoyed the pointed satire, emotional storytelling and brutal action of the book have been clamoring for more ever since. Now they’re getting the proper article. What’s it like returning to this world in 2020?

Garth Ennis: Originally I never intended to do more with The Boys at all, but for obvious reasons I’ve found myself thinking about the story and characters again over the past couple of years. There was one aspect of the original story, and one character in particular, that I never felt got a fair shake…

That character being Becky Butcher, whose demise motivates her husband Billy to do the terrible things he does—but who only actually appears in two issues of the original book. I liked writing Becky very much, almost as much as Butcher himself, and I wanted to look in greater detail at how her relatively brief appearance cast such a long shadow.

DIAMOND: Of course, this series will be perfectly approachable for new readers and the countless new fans of The Boys. However, for those who have been on this whole journey with you, Darick, Russ and co. or have caught up recently, how does this new series tie to the previous one?

Garth Ennis: So, 12 years after the events of the series, Hughie and Annie have come back to his hometown in Scotland to get married—about time, Annie might say, and she’d be right (Hughie has gotten no more decisive in the intervening period). Then a mysterious package arrives, apparently out of the blue, containing documents that shed new light on The Boys’ long-deceased leader, Billy Butcher. This is very dangerous ground for Hughie, psychologically speaking—he’s been living with the fallout of the horrifically violent times he spent with Butcher ever since. But now he has no choice but to head down the rabbit hole, back to the days when Butcher, MM, Frenchie and the Female were part of his life.

Hughie is going to find things out about Butcher that he never knew before, things that might get him looking at his erstwhile boss- and his own life, come to that—in a rather different light. But he’ll have to figure out who it is that’s trying to drag him back into the world of The Boys in the first place- and why.

DIAMOND: With The Boys back in town, exploding in the mainstream, Preacher wrapping up a strong run on TV, and Punisher books on the stands and in the works, have people finally caught up with the Garth Ennis flavor?

Garth Ennis: Long may it continue, I suppose.