Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Creator Roundup

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This week is an art heavy roundup as Dan Hipp channels an immortal trickster, Ben Templesmith hacks and slashes, Kieron Gillen discusses mutant rights, Jonathan Luna does a non comic related painting, Chrissie Zullo draws a beautiful girl, Grant Morrison is a wizard, Bryan lee O’Malley refuses to move on, Eric Canete plays around with a bazooka, D&A raise the dead, Skottie young goes depression era thug and Brandon Graham analyses his current state of mind.


- Dan Hipp channels his inner Loki:
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Ben Templesmith posted a whole host of amazing artworks he’s been doing. Check ‘em all out! Here’s one of Cassie Hack:
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Kieron Gillen caught up with Comics Alliance to chat about Uncanny X-Men 1. Here’s an excerpt:
ComicsAlliance: How did you choose your roster for the new Uncanny X-Men out of the huge cast of potential characters?

Kieron Gillen: I knew the X-Men: Schism [event] was coming, so my run up till now has actually been setting up the pieces, and the more philosophical elements. My first issue before the reboot focused on Magneto, and there's that Machiavelli meditation: "Is it better to be loved than feared?" I think if you look back whenever my [X-Men] run ends, you'll see that's my theme. I was very interested in the concept of fear. The first issue ends with a letter of Scott's -- a "Letter to Humanity" that's part of the back matter. We'll continue to protect the world that hates and fears us, but we'll never be victims again.

For me one of the major parts of Schism was Wolverine very much playing the idealist. Since Wolverine kind of walks out, they have to shoulder that burden to protect a world that hates and fears them. That includes [Wolverine's] school. It's actually a very paternalist attitude, "Go open your school. We'll go on protecting everyone. It's ok. Don't worry your furry little head about it." Although I kind of agree with Scotty; he sees that they haven't got time to be idealistic, because there are so few of them left.

CA: Because this is war?

KG: Or, it's survival. There hasn't been a major threat to the X-Men's existence [in a while] except for the Fear Itself stuff, and it's actually been the X-Men in a position of power, which I think you only realize in retrospect. I was very interested in the idea of the X-Men actually being the government [in Utopia], and seeing how they deal with their refugee situation from Breakworld. It's a very optimistic arc, actually. The easy, cynical story to do would be turning the X-Men into everything they hated. There's so much in the book that is Sisyphean. We'll never get into a position where mutants are loved in the Marvel Universe. It's a book about societal change whose whole core concept includes an element that means we can never actually win. There's a kind of element of defeatism to that, and that's my nagging problem with writing the X-Men. But you write around that, and you can show meaningful change in some way.


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Jonathan Luna posted this painting depicting a scene from ‘Stripes’:
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Chrissie Zullo posted some more comissions, including this Red Sonja:
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Grant Morrison sat down with CNN Geekout to discuss Action Comics and All Star Superman:
CNN Geek Out: Did DC come to you write "Action Comics" or did you pitch them the idea?
Grant Morrison: No, actually Dan DiDio (Co-Publisher of DC Comics) came over earlier in the year and told me what the plans were for this whole "New 52" initiative and he wanted me to do Superman.
I had no intention of it really, because I was kind of wrapping up all of the "Batman" stuff and I kind of said what I wanted to say about Superman (Grant wrote for All-Star Superman from 2005 to 2008) and the old Superman book, but I kind of had a little bit left over.
After I‘d done that story, it was kind of the end of Superman’s life, and I was interested in going back to the roots of the character, and his social and political roots, and maybe doing a take that dealt with him as a young man, but I didn’t really have any plans for that until Dan came over and then when he gave me the opportunity, and he said that they were willing to even change the continuity, and to let some new ideas and energy into it, it seemed perfect for that.
So the two things came together.

CNN Geek Out:
So, you mentioned "Batman and Robin." Has it been hard to write for Superman after writing for "Batman and Robin" and getting so deep into that mythos?
Morrison: Well, not really because I’m pretty fond of Superman and I’d done all the research for it when I was doing all the research for the old stuff, so it was kind of easy to get back into that mindset.
But again as you say, it’s very different from Batman, as that character was based on mysteries and intricate puzzles, and all that sort of stuff. Whereas "Action Comics'" title demanded that you take it in a much more physical and visceral way, so it was two different ways of thinking which also made it a little bit more fun.


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Bryan Lee O’Malley did what he does best and drew Ramona Flowers:
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Eric Canete also posted artwork, including this excellent Tank Girl:
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Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning chat with USA today about Resurrection Man. Here’s a morsel:
Like in soap operas, characters who die in comic books usually end up alive again somehow. But Mitch is a bit different in that every time he gets killed, he's resurrected with new and unusual powers, be it as a being of water, a guy with X-ray vision or — way back in the day when he was shot by Hitman in the first series — a dude with the ability to create butterflies.

Until their original editor, Eddie Berganza, asked them to bring back Resurrection Man for the new DC Universe, Lanning and Abnett hadn't been thinking about doing another series because they were able to give the original run a satisfying ending before it was canceled.

"That said, we did have and still got a little file of scrawlings and scratchings and — would you believe it — fax messages from people. That's how we used to do stuff back then," Lanning says, laughing. "If we take them out to the sunlight now, they just crumble to dust."

Even though they had "almost done too good a job telling the story the first time," Abnett says, tying up every loose end, they decided instead to give Mitch Shelley a new lease on life by retelling his story, making him a much more proactive character and pulling a bit more from the supernatural this time around.


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Skottie Young sketches up this awesome rendition of the Goon:
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Brandon Graham posted a bunch of preview pages for his upcoming story in Dark Horse Presents 7, as well as this little cartoon he drew at Midnight:
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