We’ve found more things to point to in the wake of the passing of Dwayne McDuffie. First, we have the artwork above by James Mason on Dwayne’s passing. And Michael Davis, Dwayne’s co-founder of Milestone Media, presents what may be the last photo of the Milestone creative founders from the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con. From left to right: Denys Cowan, Dwayne McDuffie, Michael Davis.
‘Motherfucker’ was part of the way I used to describe Dwayne. The full description was, Dwayne McDuffie is the smartest motherfucker I’ve ever met.
I’m a smart guy, I’ve been to Ivy League schools and I have a PhD. Dwayne could destroy me without breaking a sweat on any subject.
ANY subject.
How in the world can we go on?
I mean it.
A world without that smartass motherfucker is a world I do not want to think about. Denys Cowan told me that there is now a giant, GIANT hole in the industry not to mention the hole in our hearts, which we both mentioned because as badass as we act, we are really pussies.
How do we go on?
My best guess is we go on by honoring Dwayne for what he was, a fantastic writer a great friend and one badass motherfucker.
Noted comics and animation writer Dwayne McDuffie died Monday evening, reportedly from complications due to a surgical procedure.
Dwayne joined the comics industry in the 80s working for Marvel Comics editorial and special projects. He quickly made his name as a writer creating series such as Damage Control, helping to redefine Deathlok for the nineties, and having She-Hulk break razors while trying to shave her legs– a throwaway gag which became notorious. He soon left the staff job to become a full-time freelance writer.
This led to Dwayne’s co-founding of Milestone Media in 1992, with creators Denys Cowan, Michael Davis and businessman Derek T. Dingle, which expanded the role of minorities in comics both on the page and off, launching a line of comics in 1993 that included Hardware, Blood Syndicate, Static, Icon, Kobalt, Xombi, and the Shadow Cabinet, all of which McDuffie had a hand in creating or co-creating.
Dwayne moved to animation when Static was turned into Static Shock for KidsWB, which led to becoming story editor for the Justice League Unlimited, Ben 10: Alien Force and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien animated series and writing a number of DC’s recent direct-to-DVD animated projects– his latest work was the script for the All-Star Superman animated adaptation, which went on sale today.
He wrote damn fine comics, most recently on Justice League of America, Fantastic Four, and Firestorm. He was a giant in just about every aspect you care to mention, including size.
Dwayne was a major talent and will be greatly missed.
UPDATES: Apparently Dwayne’s death was due to a heart issue. More details as we get them.
And Heidi found this great interview with Dwayne, to show you a bit of what he was like:
BURBANK, CA, (February 8, 2011) – Primetime television stars Nathan Fillion (Castle) and Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men) lead a diverse array of performers as the voices behind Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, the next entry in the popular, ongoing series of DC Universe Animated Original Movies. Building up to the release of the highly anticipated live action film, Green Lantern, in theatres June 17, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights arrives on Blu-Ray™, DVD, On Demand and for Download June 7 from Warner Premiere, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation.
Fillion provides the voice of the animated film’s central character Hal Jordan, the human Green Lantern assigned to Sector 2814 (which includes Earth). Fillion has starred in several primetime television series including Desperate Housewives, Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He has also developed a popular cult following as a pair of Joss Whedon’s heroic captains: Capt. Mal Reynolds in the space-western series Firefly and follow-up film, Serenity; and Captain Hammer in Whedon’s internet sensation Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Fillion returns to the DC Universe after his successful turn as Steve Trevor in the animated film Wonder Woman, and has performed voice work on Justice League, Robot Chicken, The Venture Bros., and several Halo video games.
Moss gives voice to Arisia, a young recruit forced into her first mission on just her third day as a Green Lantern. Prior to starring as the ever-evolving Peggy Olson in AMC’s ground-breaking series Mad Men, Moss was featured on The West Wing, Invasion and Picket Fences. Moss has been active in voiceovers for animation with previous roles in Steven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs, Freakazoid! and It’s Spring Training, Charlie Brown!.
The voice cast for the animated Green Lantern: Emerald Knights also features actor/spoken word artist Henry Rollins (Sons of Anarchy, The Henry Rollins Show) as Kilowog, Jason Isaacs (the Harry Potter films) as Sinestro, legendary professional wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper (They Live) as Bolphunga, Arnold Vosloo (The Mummy) as Abin Sur, Kelly Hu (The Vampire Diaries) as Laira and Wade Williams (Prison Break) as Deegan. Radio Hall of Fame commentator/talk show host Michael Jackson voices the esteemed Guardian, Ganthet.
Bruce Timm is executive producer of Green Lantern: Emerald Knights. Directors are Lauren Montgomery, Jay Oliva and Christopher Berkeley.The full-length animated Green Lantern: Emerald Knights complements the Warner Bros. theatrical release of the highly anticipated live-action major motion picture Green Lantern,Green Lantern: Emerald Knights will be distributed by Warner Home Video as a Blu-Ray™ Combo Pack and 2-Disc Special Edition DVD, as well as single disc DVD. The film will also be available On Demand and for Download.
Sequart is excited to announce that 2011 is the YEAR OF ELLIS — as in celebrated comics writer Warren Ellis. Throughout the year, we’ll be offering three books and a documentary film on Ellis, exploring his major works, his overall career, and why he deserves his status in the top pantheon of comics writers.
Our second Ellis book of 2011 will be Shot in the Face: A Savage Journey to the Heart of Transmetropolitan, edited by CBR’s Chad Nevett. This book of essays will study the riveting collaboration of Ellis and artist Darick Robertson. It features essays by Greg Burgas, Johanna Draper Carlson, Julian Darius, Sara K. Ellis, Ryan K. Lindsay, Patrick Meaney, Jason Michelitch, Chris Murphy, Chad Nevett, Kevin Thurman, Brett Williams, and Sean Witzke.
Our third Ellis book of the year will beVoyage in Noise: Warren Ellis and the Demise of Western Civilization, authored by Kevin Thurman. This book examines Ellis’s entire body of work for common themes, discovering philosophical perspectives and parallels that illuminate contemporary society.
To top it all off, 2011 will see the premier of the documentary filmWarren Ellis: Captured Ghosts, directed by Patrick Meaney and produced in association with Respect! Films (Amber Yoder, Jordan Rennert, and Patrick Meaney). It’s executive produced by Sequart (Julian Darius and Mike Phillips) and F. J. DeSanto, with creative consultant Kevin Thurman. This follow-up to Respect! and Sequart’s popular Grant Morrison: Talking with Gods features interviews with Ellis and a plethora of other comics professionals. It’s tentatively scheduled for late 2011 release.
Although 2011 is the Year of Ellis, that doesn’t mean Sequart won’t also be releasing other works. In fact, even before any of our Ellis titles, we’re offeringClassics on Infinite Earths: The Justice League and DC Crossover Canon, authored by Julian Darius. The book examines classic Justice League stories and universe-wide DC crossovers, arguing that they constitute a literary canon. Along with this book, other non-Ellis projects are in the works, and we’ll be making some major announcements on those in the coming months.
Thanks for your support, and be sure to tweet and post about the Year of Ellis!
Adrienne Roy, whose colorful storytelling was a fixture throughout two decades of Batman and other best-selling DC comic books, lost a year-long battle with cancer on December 14th.
The premier DC Comics colorist during the “Bronze Age of Comics” provided dramatic coloring and storytelling for nearly all of the company’s top titles, but is best remembered for her 15-year, 189-issue run on Batman, her 16-year, 202-issue run on the company’s flagship Detective Comics, and a 14-year tenure on The New Teen Titans, plus many years coloring other Bat-titles including Brave and the Bold, Robin, Batman and the Outsiders, Gotham Knights and Shadow of the Bat.
Though her initial Bat assignments were for legendary editor Julius Schwartz, she was recruited to color the entire Batman line by editor (later DC president) Paul Levitz, who explains, “Adrienne combined the ability of a set designer to create beauty with the ability of a lighting designer to create drama and storytelling focus, and wrapped it in a sweet professionalism. No wonder we editors chose her again and again, keeping her on favorite titles like Batman literally for decades.”
Adrienne Roy’s coloring enhanced the artwork of comicdom’s top artists, from Golden and Silver Age legends like Jack Kirby, Irv Novick, Gene Colan and Superman’s Curt Swan to modern greats like George Peréz, Jim Aparo, Don Newton, Keith Giffen and Todd McFarlane.
The Verona, NJ native was a veteran of science fiction, comics, Star Trek and horror film conventions, and was one of the first female comics fans to break into the ranks of New York comics professionals. After marrying and moving to Manhattan, she briefly assisted her husband, DC Comics staffer Anthony Tollin, on his own freelance work before being recruited for solo assignments by vice president/production manager Jack Adler, who recognized by her third story that she would soon be “DC’s best colorist.” Under the tutelage of Adler and DC president Sol Harrison, Roy quickly moved into the ranks of DC’s top freelancers, with continuing assignments on a variety of titles including Superman, Green Lantern, All-Star Comics (featuring the Justice Society), G.I. Combat, House of Mystery and Batman Family. She was also the regular colorist on DC’s World’s Greatest Super-Heroes and Batman syndicated newspaper strips.
“For more than a decade, it seemed like Adrienne Roy was coloring virtually every DC comic,” recalls inker and comics historian Jim Amash, “but in truth she was only coloring most of the top sellers, the titles that everyone was reading!” Adrienne was the only DC freelancer with her own desk in the company’s Manhattan offices, and was the first colorist signed by DC to exclusive, multi-year employment contracts.
AP: Ali, ALL PULP really appreciates you taking a few minutes downtime to answer a few questions. First, can you introduce yourself, some personal background and such?
Ali: I could go with the classic Dr. Evil line, “The details of my life are quite inconsequential”, but that’s a heck of a spot to leave an interviewer in so let’s see if I can cliff note it. By day I labor quietly at a wonderfully dead end job I’m going leave as soon as politicians quit playing football with the economy and people’s lives; by night I’m a working graphic designer who happily gets a chance to do what he loves. If I’m really lucky I occasionally get paid at one profession or the other. So far the dead end day job’s in the lead on stable payments, but I live in hope for the rest.
I’ve been fortunate to be a working designer for the better part of two decades, I’ve been involved in the print business for the better part of three and have a practical working knowledge of prepress and print related workflows. I’ve worn a few hats and if pressed can actually take a project from concept to design, to production and finishing before I have to turn it over to another set of hands. I’m basically a one man digital print shop and I’m also an illustrator to boot when I get a second to actually sit down at a drafting table and sketch. The only thing I don’t have any major experience to be effective on is web work, building sites and whatnot; I’d kill, okay maybe maim, alright seriously annoy someone to get versed on that stuff.
I’ve freelanced and spent a decade doing event and convention graphics where I worked for practically every type of client imaginable. In case you’re curious, worst convention/client/group? a tie between a convention of Christians and Catholics and the X Games; best convention/client/group? an international convention of Coroners. Coroners are some of the best people on the planet and given the nature of their jobs, they’re pretty fun to be around. They have a great sense of humor as a group, bar none.
But I digress…
I usually pull off miracles of design and prepress in the wilder side of the San Francisco Bay Area, known to locals as Oakland, California, which is generally a nicer place to live than our press clippings would lead you to believe. At least once a month, usually while waiting for a bus headed home for a quiet weekend, someone tosses a bag over my head, tosses me onto the bus I was waiting for and insures I’m locked up in my own home for roughly three days to produce whatever Pro Se magazine is due on the stands. My only companion during those periods is Miles, their mighty watch cat. Apparently he’s underpaid because Miles naps the bulk of the time and insists I feed him when he’s not asleep. I think he’s the waterboarding workaround. So during my captivity, they usually run DVDs to keep me from calling Amnesty International. I’m hoping for Inception this month, I missed that one at the movies…
…oh, and a note to my Pro Se abductors: could we get the Mint Milano cookies? I’d like some to dip in my milk, thanks.
Should I say that I tend to be pretty tongue in cheek, or is that obscured by my sparkling wit and obvious modesty?
Okay I’ll try to be more serious from here on out, next question!
AP: As far as pulp is concerned, let’s talk about you as a fan first. Are you a fan of the pulp genre and, if so, what are your interests pulpwise and some of the bigger influences on you, both character and author wise?
Ali: Well I sort walked into pulp at an early age and was a fan and didn’t know it. I was encouraged to read at an early age and books were generally given to me more than toys so while other kids were struggling to get to the “See Dick run” stage I was reading the Gold Bug, Murders in the Rue Morgue, the Three Musketeers and Robin Hood. I was basically that strange quiet kid you’d find on the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits who has this spooky maturity thing going on who’s reading Conan Doyle and understanding world news situations at the age of three. I was also a fan of golden age comic book characters and a huge Batman fan. It was a good time, you got the Justice Society teaming up with their modern day counterparts in the Justice League, Denny O’Neil, Irv Novick, Neal Adams and others were doing some fine work over in the Batman books and it was there that I first encountered Maxwell Grant’s (or Walter Gibson’s if you prefer) signature character, the Shadow. That was my first encounter with the character and it was a DC Comics interpretation so there was some modification on the character, but it was good enough to follow the guy over to his own book by O’Neil and the amazing work of Mike Kaluta and I was hooked on the Shadow.
At that same time I was reading Conan and Doc Savage and the Avenger over in Justice, Inc. but didn’t even realize they were considered pulp fiction because they were all tied to comics I had been reading. I looked at Dash Hammett as mystery and crime fiction which is where the Shadow and the Avenger fell in my estimation. Doc and Conan were riding shotgun with the high adventure tales of guys like Jack London or Howard Pyle. For me, pulp was never really something that was concrete as a specific style of literature, it was just another form of fiction.
I can’t say if I’m really influenced as much as an appreciative fan of certain writers. The older I get, the less purple the prose gets. I have a healthy love for science fiction, espionage and crime fiction and a great respect for the works of Raymond Chandler, Dash Hammett, Rex Stout, Ray Bradbury, Poe, Oscar Wilde, Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, Isaac Asimov, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Matt Wagner, Robert B. Parker, Rod Serling and Harlan Ellison to name more than a few.
I think because my inclination is more visual and the artists from the comics I grew up with, and graphic novels and such I still follow, I’m a fan of great artists from back in the day like Wally Wood, Alex Raymond, Gil Kane Alex Toth, Mike Kaluta, Marshall Rogers, Mac Raboy, Carmine Infantino, Curt Swan, Steranko, Frank Robbins, Ditko, Frazetta, Brent Anderson, Dave Stevens, Neal Adams, Will Eisner, Don Newton and Kirby and some of the modern guys who are bringing back the pulp style with their work like Darwyn Cooke, Michael Lark, Mitch Breitweiser, Francesco Francavilla, Keiron Dwyer, Paul Smith and Athena Voltaire’s Steve Bryant.
I like the trend away from the whole anime/manga and fusion style. It’s nice to see people that look like people and not some Sailor Moon variation. It would be nice to see art trend back into what it was before the cookie cutter anime era or the all flash gimmick days of Image where you had illustrators delivering solid storytelling which works in concert with strong writing as opposed to serving as an eye candy distraction. I know I sound like one of those crabby old guys who complain about change, but that’s not it at all, I just want artists who strive to be unique in such a way that when you see their work you know the story’s going to be that much stronger because the artist isn’t riding their ego, they are practicing their craft and enjoying every minute of it. In an age where any bloke with a laptop and a drawing tablet can call themselves an artist, I’d like to see a person who really knows what they’re doing and makes it work without a ton of fanfare.
I’m also an avid fan of audio dramas which started, oddly enough, with the Shadow and Sherlock Holmes. There was a great radio station that ran the old time radio shows on Saturdays and around the age of eleven, I noticed them as something other than background noise. My dad would occasionally listen to CBS Radio Mystery Theater in the 1970s, but I got hooked directly on a Shadow and Sherlock Holmes broadcast. The Shadow show was “the House that Death Built”, involving a crazy hanging judge type who rigged his house with all these execution gimmicks and was killing people who either escaped him or turned against him. The Holmes show was probably one of the best of Conan Doyle’s stories, the Speckled Band. It began a love affair with audio dramas that I have to this day and I follow the BBC regularly when I’m not sitting through a Johnny Dollar marathon or something…
AP: As far as your current involvement in Pulp, you are the designer/formatter/guru for Pro Se Productions. How did that association come to be?
Ali: Bus Stop. Bag over the head. I guess that’s not enough? Okay, I guess I can expand my answer a bit.
There was a fad online sometime ago called fan fiction, it’s not as heavy as it once was but it allowed a lot of writers (good, bad and needs their hands chopped off) a forum to express themselves by writing adventures of their favorite characters that probably wouldn’t have seen the light of day any other way. Among these groups was a little band called DC Futures headed by Erik Burnham. It was sort of DC Comics, the Next Generation, without the annoying android guy. At any rate it was there that I found a piece written by Tommy Hancock that dealt with the new generation of my Golden Age heroes and it was some really great writing. Somehow we got together in a conversation, I think I sent him an email praising him as the next best thing to sliced bread or something and we traded emails back and forth and found we had quite a bit in common. When he started a fan fic group of his own dealing specifically with those great old heroes, I pitched a couple of ideas and eventually did some very forgettable (in my humble opinion) writing on a few pieces. One of them, Gotham Knights, featuring Batman and other guys that were working Gotham City in the 30s and 40s was basically my War & Peace, and put the two of us on a path that’s led to a great friendship and creative collaboration.
We trod through a few trenches creatively, mostly with Tommy starting with “I’ve got this idea…” or “Got a sec?” which usually means a few hours later we’ve hammered out points, brainstormed and refined things first thought he had and he runs off six to ten alternate thoughts in the process. Most guys get one, maybe two brilliant ideas a week, Tommy gets something like a dozen in about an hour, every hour, all day, every day. I’ve been pretty fortunate to watch the writer Tommy is develop from the writer Tommy was. He was exceptional then and he’s only gotten better since. So he and I have always had a venture on the backburner where he’d eventually get around to doing something where my contribution would be more in my field of design like a magazine or something. During the fan fic days, I made the mistake of doing an ebook for one thing and it led to a sort of one off set of ebooks which didn’t really go anywhere. That might have been a good thing at the time, neither one of us were exactly where we needed to be in our respective skill sets.
As time went on, I’d do the occasional logo or comp together a piece of art for Tommy, but one day he came online in usual Tommy mode with “I’ve got this idea AND I want you to be a part of it.” Since he altered the script, I asked what he needed and he laid out the concept for what is now Pro Se Productions. Initially I had a small part in the thing, he needed logos for what was to be a series of audio dramas so I said, “Sure, no problem.” Confident he had me hooked, our hero moved on to the next phase of his plan which was a damn sight more ambitious, he springs on me that Pro Se is going to also have a print/publishing branch. So of course he asks, yours truly to lend a hand.
So of course with no guarantee of payment any time in my immediate future, and the knowledge that every month was going to be a grinder of pulling together all the disparate elements that make up the layout of an anthology book, I asked myself what any sane man would say to such a prospect…
…then I said yes anyway.
I’m a horrible businessman where my friends are concerned, so Pro Se’s my pro bono gig. I don’t take a check for it so the talent gets paid for their work. To be honest, Pro Se is the kind of seat of the pants design on the fly project that makes life fun, so I just enjoy the ride and add the credit to the resume. In another life I’d be Scotty on the Enterprise, doing wild things at the last minute just to see if I can pull it off before the Klingons blow us out of space…
AP: What exactly do you do as a formatter and designer? Walk us through the process of putting together one of the Pro Se magazines, if you would.
Ali: Well to be honest and in all seriousness, there’s not really a good way to answer that one.
I could be lightly technical and tell you that I use the Adobe Creative Suite software programs to get my job done. I work in Photoshop to process and format the images properly for what we do. some need to be tweaked more than others, occasionally I add something to an image or take it away, but it’s basic image prep work and file conversion since my images show up in any form from a jpeg to multiple page pdfs I have to pull apart and make separate images. In Illustrator, I create logos, cover layouts, and set up most of the ads I create on the fly. The actual book layout is set up as a template in InDesign where I do all the typesetting for the stories sent to Tommy, add in the visual elements and plug up major white spaces with house ads if we don’t have other folks plugging their products. We stir, say a few kind words and pray as I set up proof copies in pdf form for Tommy to review and note corrections, and we go back and forth until he says it’s good.
I upload files to Tommy and voila it’s soup!
We’ve gotten the process down from the first nightmare month where we actually ran through a few print houses and had to reformat files from an image based workflow to a pdf workflow. and the first month we did all three books together and it took weeks as we went back and forth with one printer then another and then we’d go somewhere else and have to redo the whole thing for those guys. I think during that whole challenge, Tommy and I were trying not to hang ourselves in an unspoken suicide pact, but it was a learning experience and there are things we know we wouldn’t do the same way again.
Now it’s a fairly quick process. The templates are streamlined, I redesigned the book so image placement is not as essential to the text and it made what used to take almost a week into a two day process. If I have everything and no interruptions, I can knock out the entire book from unrelated elements to finished product in about 12 hours. I’m competing with myself though, so I’m always trying to beat my best time and make it look better than it did before.
AP: Is your design influenced by any particular style, either derived from pulp or outside of that genre?
Ali: Not intentionally. I like the art deco look and feel of things, probably more from watching Agatha Christie’s Poirot than anything else. That look sort of played into the current direction of the Pro Se books house style. So much of the Pro Se look is supported by the way text is displayed that I’m in a constant state of refining things, so I try not to be married to anything because I may need to drop it down the road for something that might work better. There are some great font foundries out there like Nick Curtis, his fonts capture the look and feel of a bygone era while being a little more polished. He’s got great work over at My Fonts and it’s pretty reasonable. Of course my other go to font house is Nate Piekos and the wonderful folks over at Blambot, and their free fonts are so great that it makes typesetting and text design work a breeze.
In other aspects of my work, I try not to work in any particular style, that’s usually dictated by the client or the job. The more freedom I get on a project, the more I throw myself into it. Pro Se was a blank check design wise, so a lot of me is on each page.
When I’m doing my own art, I try not to follow any particular style but I’m getting back to studying artists Ilove and I’m hoping their work will continue to guide my own.
AP: Pulp seems to be having a resurgence currently. What are your thoughts on the reason for that and what part do you think design/format of material plays in that?
Ali: Everything comes back in style eventually, you just have to wait for it. I think in a world of global terrorism, political polarization and financial uncertainty we find ourselves pretty much in the same shoes as the generation who ushered in the pulp era. We’re looking for a bit of escapism where problems are solved in relatively short order, or someone plays the hero, or we enter world of high adventure that removes us from the overwhelming concerns of the world we actually live in for just a little while. Not necessarily a world of snap brim fedoras, or over the top heavies, but just something that starts out quietly enough before it hits you in the gut and catapults you to a “wow” finish. You leave feeling entertained and you want to come back for more later.
So what some are seeing as a rebirth of pulp is really just a recognition of what’s been with us the whole time. Sometimes we renamed it because the vehicle it was delivered in changed like, film noir, but pulp’s influence is in a lot of our entertainment and literature. There was pulp before pulp in penny dreadfuls and boys’ own stories across the pond, Sherlock Holmes is basically Doc Savage with a drug habit and fewer friends, Dorian Gray preceded the weird tale with a built in object lesson and morality play, heck you could look at Shakespeare and make a serious argument that he wrote a number of murder stories that would lay the framework for everything this side of Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns. I realize that might offend pulp purists, but we are in a constant state of change and growth as we age, why should pulp be a static thing in a specific niche? In its heyday, pulp ran the gamut in its chosen subject matter and pretty much every category of fiction you look at in Borders or Barnes & Noble has been used in pulp magazines, so to look at it now and say “Pulp is…” and you push in your view then you eliminate the possibility of it evolving into something else. Cyberpunk? It’s pulp. Steampunk? It’s pulp.. Harry Potter? It’s pulp. Twilight? Okay, maybe there are a few limits we should set, but the point is pulp fiction was simply an avenue to deliver entertainment to the masses relatively cheap and it encompassed a lot more than guys like the Shadow and Doc Savage.
It’s a trend that’s starting to return in comics where heroes are actually heroic. It’s returning to film where we are starting to see more masked avengers, or wrong men who have to clear themselves, we’ve fantasy stuff like Avatar and sci-fi thrillers like Inception. Pulp’s not just on the rise so is the concept of the heroic ideal. Some of these are executed well and you get novels like “It’s Superman!” which is the closest we’ve ever gotten to a pulp Superman novel which is one part superhero, one part pulp novel with a healthy dose of John Steinbeck thrown in. Or it’s executed awkwardly and you find an off beat version of Doc Savage or the Shadow falling short of its potential because you lose sight of the heart of the character. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, we need to put those babies on the car and see where the road takes us next.
AP: You are a writer as well with a background in fan fiction. Any plans to try your hand at published pulp fiction?
Ali: I’ve been away from writing for the better part of a decade. I’ll see what happens when I shake the rust off my writer’s cap and take a stab at a new tale or two. Writing’s something I enjoy, but it requires time and a certain amount of peace and quiet for me. My life has been on the move nonstop since the fan fic days, so fact I’m even considering authoring a new story much less actually executing same is extraordinary. I’m rusty and will probably give whoever edits me the biggest headache this side of California, but Tommy has this idea I should give it a shot and it’s hard not to listen to that kind of coaxing.
I live by the motto of “Everything’s possible”, so I rule nothing out.
AP: You are a renaissance man as well. Designer/formatter, writer…and artist. What pieces have you done for Pro Se’s magazines and has your art work appeared elsewhere?
Ali: I’m also a pretty decent tenor, no one ever brings up the singing, sigh…
What pieces have I done for Pro Se’s magazines? You mean besides the magazines? This is a tough room!
I’ve done the bulk of the house ads that are currently in the books. I pinch hit on a couple of art pieces Let’s see in Fantasy and Fear (FnF) #1 I was lucky enough to get Ron Fortier’s “Beast of the Mountains”. It was a rush sketch, all pencil, that I had to complete in 20 minutes because we were on the absolute last day in our first month and were short one sketch. It never got inked but I played with it in Photoshop so it was close to the more finished art work we had for the other stories. In Masked Gun Mystery (MGM) #1, I got a piece of Tommy Hancock’s “Murphy’s Wake”, which was fun because it was from an earlier idea Tommy had about a book where everything was presented as newspaper clippings and diary entries and such, so the story was laid out the reflect that using fonts that changed with the material being viewed. I think I did a photo of the burning house in a newspaper clipping and an idealized appearance of the hero that was supposed to invoke the imagery of a great series of comic book stories in the 1970s featuring a ghostly hero called the Spectre. Finally over in Peculiar Advenutres (PA) #2 I contributed a piece to a story by Sean Ellis, “The Sorceror’s Ghost” which featured a scene from the story where I tried to capture this awesomely huge zeppelin in the skies over London. That was another fast sketch where inking, filters and lighting effects were done in Photoshop to cover up just how rough a piece it was.
I’m hoping to do some actual art that isn’t required five minutes after I get a story on press day, y’know just for kicks…
AP: With the myriad of talents you have, does pulp appeal to you because it can utilize all of them or is there something more that draws you to throw yourself into this sort of work?
Ali: I’m an artist and designer, so I’m always up for a project where I can exhibit and refine my skills. Pro Se covers that need in me because it’s an evolving work even with everything in place, I look at a piece and say to myself something can always be tightened or improved. The writer in me has sort of awakened cranky and hungry so I’m the process of completing a story for the first time in years which is really exciting because it’s another way to be artistic. Pro Se is open to the ideas I have, so occasionally it’s good to do favors, it opens up doors you didn’t even realize were in the building of your life. I’m even getting back to sketching so Pro Se has sort of drawn me back to skills I’ve left dormant for too long. Creatively, it’s a great place to be.
But really the appeal, the draw, the kick is to take up the challenge and see if you’re going to pull it off. It’s a rush that can’t be beat by anything when I’m in the zone and everything is falling into place. Nothing is greater than just living in that moment where you’re unstoppable and know you’ve nailed it.
AP: What about the future? What do you have in the works that might appeal to the ALL PULP audience?
Ali: Well I am constantly badgering Tommy to get some of my favorites in his bag of tricks (GIVE ME MY JOHNNY CRIMSON!) on the page…
…Oh, you mean from me specifically?
I’ve pitched a concept for Masked Gun Mystery using the magazine’s title for the story which will hopefully spawn a series of stories under that umbrella. I won’t spoil it at all other than to say it allows me to play in my favorite sandbox writing wise: crime, noir, espionage and detective fiction. I’m hoping to get the first installment into MGM’s next issue in February.
That’s the only definite thing on the horizon, though Tommy and I are constantly talking about projects. It would be nice to pull off an adventure tale or two over in PA and I have a couple of guys from some old ideas that might fit well there. So after I get my first installment in the can I’m open to more writing on top of the design work I do for Pro Se at least.
AP: Ali, without those people like you, writers and artists today would be suffering. Thanks so much for what you do for pulp fiction!
DC Entertainment’s All-Star Superman was one of the better things to be released by the company during the past decade. It was universally acclaimed and awarded, recently being collected in an Absolute edition. Now, Warner Premiere is tackling Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s 12-part saga as their next animated feature. Here’s the formal press release:
BURBANK, CA, (November 29th, 2010) – Grant Morrison’s beloved, Eisner Award-winning vision of Superman’s heroic final days on Earth is brought to exquisite animated life in All-Star Superman, the latest entry in the popular, ongoing series of DC Universe Animated Original Movies coming February 22, 2011 from Warner Premiere, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation. The highly-anticipated, full-length film will be distributed by Warner Home Video as a Blu-Ray™ Combo Pack and 2-Disc Special Edition DVD for $24.98 (SRP), as well as single disc DVD for $19.98 (SRP). The film will also be available On Demand and for Download.
In All-Star Superman, the Man of Steel rescues an ill-fated mission to the Sun (sabotaged by Lex Luthor) and, in the process, is oversaturated by radiation – which accelerates his cell degeneration. Sensing even he will be unable to cheat death, Superman ventures into new realms – finally revealing his secret to Lois, confronting Lex Luthor’s perspective of humanity, and attempting to ensure Earth’s safety before his own impending end with one final, selfless act.
The celebrity-packed voice cast is headed by James Denton (Desperate Housewives) as Superman, Christina Hendricks (Mad Men) as Lois Lane, and Anthony LaPaglia (Without A Trace) as Lex Luthor. The stellar cast includes seven-time Emmy® Award winner Ed Asner (Up) as Perry White, Golden Globe® winner Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under) as Ma Kent, Matthew Gray Gubler (Criminal Minds) as Jimmy Olsen and Linda Cardellini (ER) as Nasty. Arnold Vosloo (The Mummy), Catherine Cavadini (The Powerpuff Girls), Finola Hughes (General Hospital), Alexis Denisof (Angel), Obba Babatunde (That Thing You Do!), Michael Gough (Batman) and John DiMaggio (Futurama) round out the voice cast.
Based on the Eisner Award-winning DC Comics series/graphic novel of the same name by Grant Morrison with illustration by Frank Quitely, All-Star Superman is executive produced by animation guru Bruce Timm and directed by Sam Liu (Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths) from a script by acclaimed comics writer Dwayne McDuffie (Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths). (more…)
I admit to being leery when Warner Animation announced their plans to follow the amazing [[[Batman the Animated Adventures]]] with a next generation hero called [[[Batman Beyond]]]. After all, it was a clear departure from the source material and there was no knowing how this would work.
As it turns out, there was little to fear. The series, which ran from January 1999 through December 2001, honored the past and showed us a future Gotham City that still needed a Dark Knight. Rather than just add wrinkles and gray hair to all the familiar figures, things have changed. Dick Grayson seems to be gone, Alfred and Jim Gordon are dead with Barbara Gordon now the police commissioner. And sitting in the gloom of Wayne Mansion is a still-angry, infirm Bruce Wayne.
He knows there’s work to be done and in time, targets teenager Terry McGuinness as his successor. The youth has just lost his father to violence and Wayne’s appeal sounds logical so he signs on to don a high-tech cowl, sans cape. With Wayne barking orders in his ear, Terry is the new Batman, instilling fear in the hearts of 21st century criminals.
The series lasted a strong 52 episodes plus spawned a direct-to-video film and the character wound up on other series such as [[[Static Shock]]] and was given an epilogue in episodes of [[[Justice League Unlimited]]]. There was even the tangentially-related spinoff [[[The Zeta Project]]].
Obviously the brain trust that included Bruce Timm, Alan Burnett, Paul Dini, Dwayne McDuffie, and Glen Murakami rose to the occasion, taking everything they learned from their previous efforts and poured it into this series. The future was recognizable with sleeker architecture that cast new shadows on the city’s streets. The miniaturization and sophistication of the gear was not stretching the imagination and the new sorts of threats owe a nod to the rogues of the past but were fresh menaces.
Today, Warner Home Video has released the long–awaited [[[Batman Beyond the Complete Series]]] in a nifty box set. You get all three seasons of the series and the original extras plus a bonus disc. Tucked within the box is a nice 24-page booklet with character and set designs and some glimpses into the process. The box is slipped inside a plastic wrap that approximates animation cels and makes this a lovely package, perfect for the holiday season.
The episodes look great on DVD and the stories hold up after all these years.
There are three new featurettes all running about five minutes each, which looks back at the show’s origins and the thinking that went into the series’ design and architecture. You don’t learn a lot that’s new but the creators’ affection for Terry and his world is clear. There is also the 75th anniversary documentary [[[Secret Origin]]], which is nice but it would have been nicer to have the episodes and movie that Terry’s Batman appeared in, making this a real complete set.
Here’s another insanely useful thing when writing: a cast list.
You’ve seen these before, right? Probably when reading Shakespeare. In Romeo and Juliet, the cast list includes entries like:
Montague, head of one house, at odds with Capulets
Capulet, head of one house, at odds with Montagues
Romeo, son to Montague
Mercutio, kinsman to the Prince and friend to Romeo
Benvolio, nephew to Montague, and friend to Romeo
Juliet, daughter to Capulet
Tybalt, Juliet’s brother
Now, even if you’ve never read Romeo and Juliet, and never heard the story—which means you’ve apparently lived on a remote island all your life, but never mind that now—you already have some idea how this is going to go. Two houses that hate each other, a young man from one house, a young woman from the other—you can practically see the romantic tension brewing. The cast list sets up the key relationships, and then the play just allows them to develop narratively.
But that doesn’t mean you’re going to want to have your cast list on the front page of your graphic novel. Not usually. A few books like the Justice League of America or The Legion of Super-Heroes can get away with that, but that’s because both of those are team books and so they want the reader to know which members of the team are actually involved in each issue.
But normally the cast list isn’t for your readers. It’s for you.
Whether as River Tam in Joss Whedon’s cult classic series and follow-up film, Firefly and Serenity, or as the indestructible android-from-the-future Cameron in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Glau has cornered the market on playing attractive, demure young females with the controlled homicidal power to destroy an opposing legion of trained warriors.
So it was only natural that as her first-ever animated voiceover role, Glau would fit neatly into the role of an uber-powered Kryptonian who falls under the spell of one of Superman’s greatest foes. Glau finds the perfect mix of youthful curiosity, teen angst and alien-turned-Earth-girl aggression as the voice of Kara, cousin of Superman (and ultimately destined to become Supergirl) in Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, the ninth entry in the popular, ongoing series of DC Universe Animated Original PG-13 Movies out this week from Warner Home Video.
Based on the DC Comics series/graphic novel Superman/Batman: Supergirl by Jeph Loeb, Michael Turner and Peter Steigerwald, Superman/Batman: Apocalypse is produced by animation legend Bruce Timm and directed by Lauren Montgomery (Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths) from a script by Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Tab Murphy (Gorillas in the Mist). Produced by Warner Premiere, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation, Superman/Batman: Apocalypse is now available as a Blu-ray Combo Pack, Special Edition DVD, On Demand and for Download.
Glau’s career has been populated with frequent visits to the fanboy realm, adding regular roles on The 4400 and Dollhouse to her featured gigs on Firefly/Serenity and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The professionally trained ballerina had a seven-episode run on The Unit, and will appear in the upcoming NBC series, The Cape, as well as in the film. Knights of Badassdom.
Following her recording session, Glau freely discussed a number of subjects – from the acting strengths of the Whedon alumni association to her consistent on-set nerves to a strong desire to land more adult roles. Here’s how that conversation went …
QUESTION: Was it easy to find a way to relate to Kara? SUMMER GLAU: Kara was a really comfortable fit for me because she’s sort of a girl coming into her own. A girl becoming a woman and finding out who she is, and so I felt like there were moments when it reminded me of River because she is so powerful, but also young and naïve and a little bit lost. She has this underlying strength that comes from out of nowhere. (more…)
BURBANK, CA, (February 8, 2011) – Primetime television stars Nathan Fillion (Castle) and Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men) lead a diverse array of performers as the voices behind Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, the
Adrienne Roy, whose colorful storytelling was a fixture throughout two decades of Batman and other best-selling DC comic books, lost a year-long battle with cancer on December 14th.
DC Entertainment’s All-Star Superman was one of the better things to be released by the company during the past decade. It was universally acclaimed and awarded, recently being collected in an Absolute edition. Now, Warner Premiere is tackling Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s 12-part saga as their next animated feature. Here’s the formal press release:
I admit to being leery when Warner Animation announced their plans to follow the amazing [[[Batman the Animated Adventures]]] with a next generation hero called [[[Batman Beyond]]]. After all, it was a clear departure from the source material and there was no knowing how this would work.
Here’s another insanely useful thing when writing: a cast list.
Summer Glau knows her audience.
