Image Expo!

Some of the crew went over the bridge last weekend to Image Expo, and much fun was had by all!


Last year, Wonder Con announced that they would be leaving San Francisco for the wonders of Anaheim, and it seemed as though there would be a very large gap in the Bay Area convention year. But the people at Image (whose offices are actually located in Berkley) stepped up and put together a convention at the Oakland Convention Center that is sure to grow in popularity as time goes on.

Keith muttered to himself about how hard it might be to find the convention hall in the Marriott hotel, but when the elevator doors opened, we were greeted with the most conveniently placed sign imaginable.

And who should we run into as soon as we walk on to the main floor? The Two Cats Comic Book Store guys. They were in a prime location to catch everyone on their way in. And their "Magneto Was Right" shirts were selling like crazy. If you haven't been to their store in West Portal, you really should.

Christian stoically looks to the future, while Corey "Internet's Casey" thinks about pie.

The Walking Dead TV show was definitely the talk of the convention. People were lining up to get signatures from Norman Reedus and Steven Yeun at rotating designated booths. The two actors seemed pretty happy to be there in the hustle and mayhem of the floor, and had no problem signing impromptu autographs for people while they were standing around waiting to go to their next designated signing location.

We talked to the Action Lab Entertainment crew for quite a bit. Even a bit of thanks for our constructive criticism on Snowed In. Dave Dwonch showed us some preview pages from their upcoming book Double Jumpers, or as Dave continually referred to it "The Anti-Princeless." And Tony Guaraldi-Brown showed us pages from his animal zombie apocalypse book The Rabid. Which is written by J. D. Arnold, and should show up in the June Diamond solicits. We also watched him paint a sketch of a zombie nun while he was just sitting around. Really great stuff! Dylan picked up all four issues of Princeless and a copy of Space Time Condominium. Unfortunately, we forgot to grab a group photo when we were first at the booth, and when we went back Dave was on lunch. So you will have to make due with a candid shot of Tony.

Paul Roman Martinez writes and draws a book set in the 1930s called The Adventures of 19XX that is truly a treat. You can read it on his website as well as get yourself a print copy. He pointed out that a lot of amazing things happened in the 30's and it's sad that it generally gets overshadowed by the major events surrounding it. There's a lot of thought put into the world, and his graphic compositions make for some amazing posters.

Paul Roman Martinez sporting a truly dapper vest.

 We caught up with our pals Josh Finney and Kat Rocha from Zero 1 Publishing as they continue to put the finishing touches on the Utopiates re-coloring (which should be out by the end of this year) and they keep working on Titanium Rain vol 2. Josh was kind enough to show us some upcoming pages in Titanium Rain that made Keith so excited he couldn't stop talking about them for the rest of the day. We may be doing a somewhat lengthy audio interview with them at some point as well to help promote all of their projects because there are just too many to go into.

It's a constant struggle for Nicole to find a graphic novel she enjoys. Her art tastes are pretty far off the beaten path and conventions like these are usually the only chance she has to find books that catch her eye. And Bryan J. L. Glass and Michael Avon Oeming's Mice Templar seems to have done just that. You can purchase it here. Bryan was a really sweet guy that was still beaming with joy that he had just completed the latest arc of Mice Templar and has only one arc left before his epic tale of sword wielding rodents comes to a close.

Dylan met Steve T. Seagle which has been a dream of his since he started attending conventions. Which is proof you should be careful what you wish for, because Steve promptly strangled Dylan for having lesser facial hair. But seriously, he was really nice and put up with Dylan's awkward praise for House of Secrets. And gave Dylan a copy of his graphic novel Solstice, which you can bet is going to be featured on the podcast at some point. Do yourself a favor and check out any of his books.

The snapping of Dylan's neck was heard on the other end of the convention hall.

All in all, for a first year convention, the people at Image put on a pretty good show. It was perfectly manageable crowd-wise. Although they had a huge space in front of the Image booth that was rather empty most of the time, and squashed artist's alley into a really small area. It was hard to get two people in the aisles. Much less two people with a backpack. Hopefully, They will correct it for next year.

Thanks for reading the blog, we have more Firetower interviews coming, and the Very Near Mint feature episode is on the way as well. Thank you all for your continued support, and we hope you're enjoying these books as much as we are!

Indie Spotlight #2: Firetower Studios

Chris, Dylan, & Keith gather around the laptop for a little over an hour to talk about the smorgasbord of webcomics produced by Firetower Studios. Listen to Chris spew good-natured bile!

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Mondays: Jeremy Whitley and Jason on "Faerie Sisters", a webcomic tie in to The Order of Dagonet

Every other Tuesday: Jeremy and Alicia on "Hot Interracial Marriage" a diary comic on interracial relationships, parenting, and life.

Every other Tuesday: Charlie's "Crazy Normal" a commentary and satire cartoon in one panel

Wednesdays: Jeremy and Rich's "Werewolf D.A." a supernatural legal thriller

Thursdays: Jeremy and Charlie's "Ennui of the Dead" a look at the lives, times, and melancholy of the long undead.

Fridays: Postings of pages from the "Order of Dagonet"

Both the Crew and you the listeners are rather lucky it took this long for us to review their work. All of these web comics have finished up their first storyline, so there is a wealth of strips to get you into their crazy world. The comics Firetower Studios produces are very unique, and we look forward to seeing this group as they continue to develop. If you would like to purchase the first trade paperback of "The Order of Dagonet" (which if you're in the mood for crazy fantasy adventure in a modern setting with psychedelic coloring, you really should!), you can buy it from their store.

We also discuss the wonderful world of comics litigation for about 15 minutes towards the end. The song is Feuer Frei by Rammstein.

We will be back in two weeks time with our Book of the Month Episode featuring VERY NEAR MINT by Justin Peterson. Stick around, we know you're all going to love it!

Creator Interview: Jeremy Whitley, Founder of Firetower Studios

While you are waiting for the next episode to be posted, we thought we'd share this interview we did with Jeremy Whitley. He was able to take time out from his busy schedule of writing five web comics for Firetower Studios, Princeless and his day job to answer a few questions. Even after the Indie Spotlight episode is posted, we plan on doing more interviews with each of the Firetower creators over the next few weeks.

CBotMP: Jeremy, what is your comics origin story? (what got you into sequential art to begin with?)

JEREMY WHITLEY: My dad got me into comics when I was a kid and we had a great comic store just down the street from us in Livermore CA.  When we moved to North Carolina I didn't have a local shop and kind of lost touch with comics.  However, in that time I ended up going to college for English and Creative Writing.  A few years after graduating I discovered comics again thanks to Joss Whedon and his Astonishing X-Men.  Before I knew it, I was spending $40 a month on comic books and borrowing trades and graphic novels.  Eventually I decided that there was an idea I had for a story that I really wanted to see in comic book form, so all that was left was to find an illustrator.  So I did what any serious writer would do...I posted an ad on craigslist.

CBotMP: And did you have much success?

JW: Well, Charlie Harper answered that Craigslist ad and invited me up to the local coffee shop where he had an art meetup so that we could discuss the project.  I decided to stick around and met another artist named Jason Strutz.  A lot of things happened, but a few months later we were sitting around a table in Barnes & Noble discussing officially forming a studio.

CBotMP: I can see it's grown quite a bit since then. How did the other creators become involved? 

JW: Well, Alicia & I met a long time ago in an English class.  If you read Hot Interracial Marriage, that first arc is more or less true to life.

   As for Rich, a year and a half ago we were at an outdoor festival in Raleigh with our tent full of comic books.  We were approached by this snappily dressed man who said, "Aw man, I always wanted to do what you guys are doing...and you're doing it.  That's so cool."  We invited him to come to our weekly drawing/writing meetups and he brought some ideas he was working on.  When we started talking about doing webcomics we were looking for more artists to contribute and his name immediately came up.

CBotMP: Rich's work is excellent. Switching direction over to the medium itself, why did you decide on webcomics?

JW: We've been working on print comics for what feels like so long...and it's such a long game.  Being an indy publisher and having real full time jobs, we were forced to disappear for months between issues.  Having a creative output where we get to tell stories, get them where people can see them immediately, and not have to spend money we don't have on printing is a huge plus for us.  Not to mention, we can tell stories like Werewolf D.A., which at times just feels to crazy to exist in a printed form.

CBotMP: You're not kidding. Firetower Studios "flagship book" is The Order of Dagonet. Where did the idea come from?

JW: During one of those first artist meetups Jason brought a portfolio of some of his paintings.  I found one of Titania and Bottom that reminded me of an idea I had for having modern knights do battle with actual mythological creatures.  I went home that night and wrote a script for a first issue.  I brought it to the meetup the next week and not so subtly asked Jason to read it.  After reading and chuckling, he asked how I'd feel about him taking a crack at illustrating it.  I, of course, was thrilled with the idea.

CBotMP: How much research was done for Dagonet?

JW: A few hours of direct research into trying to find good candidates for the order and learning about obscure English royalty.  Most of the rest is from memory.  I've read a lot of fantasy and I was an English major in college, so it's largely made up of things I already knew. 

CBotMP: Where do the characters come from? Are they amalgams of people you know?

JW: Well, most of them are amalgams of real people who are actual knights.  Well, amalgams may actually be putting it kindly in the cases of Dizzy and Emerald particularly.  Tottington is a little bit of Ian McKellen and a little bit of Peter O'Toole. Everyman is...well, he's a rather cynically minded Neil Gaiman to be frank.  The only truly original characters are LaVerne and my faeries.  All three of them are bits and pieces of people I know and love.

CBotMP: Each one of the web comics has a very distinct style and feel. Yet they are all written by you. Do you try and write for your artists, or do they have a rather strong say in the creative process?

JW: A little bit of both.  A lot of what I do in Faerie Sisters garners its inspiration from what Jason has done in the book.  The style and format is all him and the goofy faerie girls are all me.  Alicia is co-writer on Hot Interracial Marriage, so quite often she decides what story she wants to tell and suggests it to me.  Usually I just specialize in the formatting (and I wrote most of the first arc, which is all true by the way).  Rich and Charlie have the least to do with what I wrote, as I really started writing those strips before we had officially started the webcomics, but both of them have made the art their own in ways that are impossible to underestimate.  Charlie likes to challenge himself to do neat tricks with panel formatting and storytelling.  Rich, however, just bleeds art onto the page.  I couldn't have chosen a better style for the primal nature of these pages.

CBotMP: How far ahead are these stories mapped out?

JW: Am I supposed to map them out ahead of time?  That's only kind of a joke.  I had a huge lead on everyone when we started this thing, but while I've been paying attention to Princeless stuff, that has quickly evaporated.  I really need a vacation so I can get some work done. 

CBotMP: Any teasers you would like to tell our audience about future story lines?

JW: Well, Faerie Sisters is into its second storyline now and is going to continue to be wacky in the upcoming "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" story.  Werewolf D.A. is headed inside the courtroom, as Maya is about to find out she's not the only legal professional with a few supernatural tricks up her sleeve.  Ennui of the Dead is just going to go plain crazy with a little WWII action, some True Blood inspired naughtiness, and more examples of immortals having absolutely no sense of responsibility. 

Gary Friedrich needs your help!

by Dylan Cassard

 As some may be aware, back in 2007, the creator of Ghost Rider sued Marvel and all parties involved with the Ghost Rider movie. The ruling has finally been handed down by the judge, and it is not good.

The public battle over Watchmen has been in everyone's ears lately, and this is just a tiny little pebble in the pond. I could go on and on about Watchmen and Alan Moore and that whole debacle, but this situation between Gary Friedrich and Marvel makes the Watchmen debacle look like an amiable handshake and a parting of ways. I am all for the creation of any new work. Anyone should be aloud to express themselves as they see fit. It's why we have art. Copyright shouldn't factor into it. It's all self expression. But anything that penalizes creativity, and fines a person for doing so is abhorrent. The fact that a corporation is stepping in and telling a creator "they did not create something" that they clearly did, makes no logical sense. And the act of creation should protect them under copyright to begin with. NO JUDGE should be able to take that away from an artist. Gary Friedrich created Ghost Rider and he should be aloud to create derivative works and mass produce them. This makes just as much sense as me telling children in art school they are no longer able to paint with their fingers because I have copyrighted suns with smiley-faces on them.

What makes it worse is that Gary Friedrich has been a silent steward of the Ghost Rider license for decades. He sat on it while Marvel over-saturated the market with his character. Back in the early 90s there wasn't a book on the stands that didn't have Ghost Rider's face on it. And he never decided to sue for a single penny. But after he saw the film, he decided to flex his muscles a little. Marvel's lawyers said, "We can't have that! The creator of Cloak and Dagger might get ideas!" And so they have gone after him full force, when he was doing THEM a favor the whole time. Bad form, Marvel. I'm sure they made plenty off of that character with all of the millions of books he sold for Marvel in the 90s.

I try not to get political on this page, but creator's rights are near and dear to my heart. And what Marvel is doing to Gary Friedrich is appalling. If you can think of any way to help, the medium will be a better place for it. We forever stand on a precipice of corporatocracy in the realm of artistic expression. And comics are fast becoming a job and not art in the eyes of the top brass. It may have always been this way, but now it's going to the courts and these decisions can change the way our culture looks at intellectual property and copyright as a whole. The fact that Marvel is suing to bar Gary Friedrich from saying he created the character in the first place is stunningly absurd. And that they can take $17,000 from him for making figures of his creation is also trying and terrifying. This is a dangerous precedent. And should Friedrich not win the appeal, it's going to be tough from some artists to make a living doing sketches of characters they have worked on. Hopefully, Friedrich will appeal this. Raise awareness about this cause. Show him, and the world how important this is. Try and make a stand where and however you can. I really hope Friedrich wins ultimately and he makes an example out of Marvel instead of the other way around.

:update:

Gary Friedrich's fans and the community in general have been coming out of the woodwork to help pay the cost. Steve Niles had a donation page, but now it's simply a thank you page. Friedrich says he will indeed be appealing the decision, so this fight is not over yet.

A message from Gary Friedrich, who plans to appeal this ruling:

Since the various news agencies and websites have reported the ruling against me on my claims against Marvel in the Ghost Rider lawsuit, and the assesment of a $17,000 judgment against me and my company instead, I have read an amazing amount of comments in my support on the internet, and have received many messages of support directly. Although the reports of my employment situation and financial difficulties as well as problems with my health are unfortunately true, I want to let everyone in the comic book world, especially my supporters and fans of the Ghost Rider character which I invented, created, and wrote, that I am going to appeal the Court’s ruling and continue to fight this as long as I am able and that your support of me means more than you will ever know. I have heard your voices. I thank you with alll my heart, and I appreciate your thoughts and best wishes as I soldier on.
Feel free to keep in touch with me via e-mail: fgroovygary@aol.com.
Thanks again and God bless you.