The Blog From Another World

Dragon Con is well-known for its costumes, and this year didn’t disappoint. From hundreds of Stormtroopers and steampunk creations to superheroes and completely original visions, there was something for everyone. Here’s just a small taste of the visual delights at Dragon Con 2010:

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.

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What do you think about these costumes? Which is your favorite? Post your comments below!

We bumped into artist Menton John Matthews III, also known as Menton 3, in Artist’s Alley at Dragon Con and were lucky enough to interview him about his newest work, the miniseries Silent Hill: Past Life from IDW Publishing. Here, he tells us a bit about the book and what he looks for in a script.:

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Here we go: the amazingly hilarious six-part Firefly panel at Dragon Con 2010, with stars Morena Baccarin, Jewel Staite, Sean Maher, and Summer Glau, with special guest stars (via prank phone calls) Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk. The cast is having an excellent time–they’re clearly friends in real life–as they reminisce about the show and answer fans’ questions. This is a can’t-miss event for Browncoats!

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It’s day one of our Dragon Con coverage, and we’re getting started with some excellent footage from the Dragon Con Parade this morning! Check out Captain Planet and a slew of amazing Star Wars characters–including some apparently Scottish Stormtroopers, as they were wearing kilts, Lego Leia, and much more. After, we take a brief spin through Artist’s Alley!

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Hey there, true believers! We are at Dragon Con for the very first time–and WOW is it something–and we’re going to get footage and interviews of the coolest events and guests!

Dragon Con was founded in 1987 in Atlanta, Georgia by the Dragon Alliance of Gamers and Role-Players (DAGR), a local sci-fi/gaming group. What do dragons have to do with anything? The group’s founder, Ed Kramer, owned a Dragon Computer that was the host of a local Bulletin Board System known as “The Dragon.”

Today, more than 30,000 attendees are thronging the streets of Atlanta, milling between several host hotels, including the Hyatt Regency and the Westin. However, while its roots are in old-school computers, Dragon Con is now best known for costumes. Amazing costumes. EYE-POPPING costumes. Stay tuned for lots of pics!

However, our main focus will be the in-depth Whedon Track here at Dragon Con! We’ll be covering panels about Buffy, Firefly, Angel, and more–plus get whatever information we can find about Buffy Season 8!

But wait! There’s more! We’ll also be getting interviews with awesome comic book creators. It will all be here on the blog, so bookmark this page and follow us on Twitter and Facebook for the latest updates.

Have you ever been to Dragon Con? What do you want to see this year? Post your comments below!

We had the chance to chat with the amazingly talented Joe Quinones, who’s providing covers for the upcoming Star Wars: Knight Errant comic book series.

TFAW.com: Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to chat with us, Joe.

Joe Quinones: My pleasure.

TFAW.com: We’ve been following your blog, and it’s pretty clear you’re a Star Wars fan. Do you have any funny Star Wars-related stories?

JQ: I most certainly am! Per example, I’ll divulge this little nerd trinket–when I graduated high school in 1999 (the year of Episode I) I walked on stage wearing a clip-on Jedi braid which I switched–along with my tassle–to my left side upon receiving my diploma . . . I did not have a girlfriend in high school.

Disclaimer: I now have a girlfriend and a cat (his name is Biggs Darklighter).

TFAW.com: How did you come to be a part of the Star Wars: Knight Errant team?

JQ: Through repetitious begging and pleading. Actually, I e-mailed Star Wars editors Randy Stradley and Dave Marshall and introduced myself, sending along some examples of my work. I’d told them how big a Star Wars fan I am, and asked if they had anything available for cover work or otherwise. They were kind of enough to write back, and though they didn’t have something available at the time, told me they would keep me in mind for future projects. Thankfully they did. Two really nice guys.

TFAW.com: What’s the process like for creating a comic book cover?

JQ: Well, generally I’ll either be given a concept idea or a synopsis of the story inside, after which I’ll sketch out a couple rough cover ideas. Working for Lucasfilm, they require at least three thumbnail sketches/ ideas for any given cover, which they’ll then approve or edit.

Quinones’ concept art and final cover for Star Wars: Knight Errant #1

TFAW.com: What is your earliest memory of Star Wars?

JQ: My very earliest memory of Star Wars was when I was five or so–long before I had seen any of the movies–I had been gifted a small hardcover Return of the Jedi storybook. At the time, I thought it looked lame, couldn’t have been less interested, and went back to playing with my Castle Greyskull playset. If I only knew . . . I didn’t fully discover the greatness that is Star Wars until late elementary school, and haven’t looked back since. Prince Adam be damned.

TFAW.com: Were there any images from Star Wars that inspired you for your Knight Errant covers?

JQ: Well, cover #3 is a direct homage to a Ralph McQuarrie production painting from A New Hope, so yes. Otherwise nothing so overt, though some of my favorite artists (Drew Struzan, Adam Hughes, Iain McCaig) are famous for their work in the SW universe and they are all certainly an inspiration to me.

TFAW.com: The composition and color palette for your Knight Errant covers are unique, how did you come to choose such striking elements?

JQ: Looking at initial character designs for the series, there seemed to be a distinct western/cowboy influence, particularly with the main character, Kerra Holt.

I feel environment is a really strong element of any western and can almost take on a character all its own. I wanted to play that up in the cover, so the setting behind Kerra is grandiose and dramatic, hopefully echoing the story to unfold.

I also like the idea that Kerra was one Jedi against an entire army of Sith, which I think nicely echoes old westerns where a single hero must bring back justice and order to a corrupted town. Keeping in that line of thinking, a couple of the cover sketches even directly referenced the poster for High Noon.

As for the coloring, I was looking for something dramatic and eye catching, but also thought it could be used to help to tell a story. Here the thought was that the lighting could be seen in two ways–early morning, as we dawn upon a new age in the Star Wars universe, or later evening, as night, along with the dangers of Odion’s Sith army, descend upon Kerra. The latter option leads in thematically to the second cover in the series, where Lord Odion is seen in a similar composition, the night sky behind him, and flames all around.

Are you digging Joe’s Knight Errant covers as much as we are? Let us know below.

Check out our exclusive interview with Knight Errant writer John Jackson Miller

Pre-order your copy of Star Wars: Knight Errant #1-2 today!

Start a Star Wars: Knight Errant Series Subscription (STARTING WITH ISSUE #2)

Via Boom! Studios

It’s the return of your favorite furry flatfoots in an all new original ongoing series! Coming on the heels of BOOM!’s bestselling and multiple sell out Darkwing Duck series, BOOM! brings you another piece of the Disney Afternoon revolution with Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers in their own ongoing series debuting this December.

Join Darkwing Duck writer Ian Brill and Marvel Superhero Squad artist Leonel Castellani as they take the diminutive detectives on all new original adventure!

Whether you’re a Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers fan from the hit TV show or want to discover these beloved characters for the first time, this new ongoing series delivers all the mystery, intrigue and hijinks that made Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers the number one Disney Afternoon TV show ever!

This is the only comic book series coming out that will have you singing that song you can never forget: “Sometimes some crimes go slipping through the cracks. But these two Gumshoes are picking up the slack. There’s no case too big, no case too small, when you need help just call —Ch-ch-ch-Chip ‘N Dale Rescue Rangers!”

“After the overwhelming success we’ve had bringing Darkwing Duck back, BOOM! knew it was time to continue the excitement and imagination of the Disney Afternoon revolution in comic book form ,” said Darkwing Duck writer Ian Brill. “It’s an honor to continue the adventures of Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers for both the generation of fans that enjoyed the show the first time and for a whole new generation of comic book fans!”

Debuting in 1989, the top-rated Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers brought action and suspense to the Disney Afternoon animation block, becoming the most popular Disney Afternoon show on the air. Televised around the world, Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers is still a favorite of pop culture fans everywhere.

Coming out this December, Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers #1 is written by Darkwing Duck‘s Ian Brill with interior art by Marvel Superhero Squad‘s Leonel Castellani.

What it is: Q&A with Jason Scott and screening of his new movie, Get Lamp
Where it is: Backspace 115 NW 5th Ave. Portland, OR
When it is: Thursday, September 9, 2010 @7:00 pm
How much it is: FREE!

The Portland Commodore Users Group is proud to present a night with Jason Scott, a digital historian and archivist who specializes in early microcomputer history and dial-up bulletin board systems, at Backspace in Portland, Oregon (115 NW 5th Ave.) on September 9, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. In addition to a Q&A with Scott, there will also be a screening of his new movie about text adventure games (think Zork), Get Lamp! Scott interviewed dozens of creators, players, and scholars about the experience and effect of text adventures in this documentary and is willing to share his adventure with you at this very special event, brought to you by the Portland Commodore Users Group.

Jason Scott is the webmaster of textfiles.com, a collection of BBS-era textfiles that has been open to the public since 1998. In 2001, he began filming a documentary about BBSes called BBS: The Documentary, an eight-episode miniseries about BBSes spanning 25 years and totaling five-and-a-half hours in length.

This is sure to be an excellent evening for fans of text adventure games and other old-school computer awesomeness, so pick up the coin, “Go North,” then “Go West.”

Who is PDXCUG?
PDXCUG is a growing group of Commodore enthusiasts located in the greater metropolitan area of Portland, Oregon. They like to share ideas and work on Commodore-related projects together. Membership is free and they encourage anyone who has an interest in Commodore computers to attend their meetings. If you are interested, please come on by–the more, the merrier!

We remember plugging away on our Commodore 64s–how about you? Are you planning to hit this event? Post your comments below!

We’ve always had an excellent time at Portland’s Stumptown Comics Fest (see our videos from STCF 2010), so we were especially thrilled to receive the following news:

The 8th annual Stumptown Comics Fest will take place on April 16 and 17, and will be held in its new location at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon. In recent years the previous space has been packed to the gills; this move to the Convention Center will give attendees room to breathe, with 30,000 square feet of exhibition space (nearly double the square footage) and will allow the amount of table to be increased with room for future growth.

A small number of guests have already been confirmed for the next fest, from local, national, and even international stages. Guests are to include: Carla Speed McNeil (Finder), Molly Crabapple (illustrator, founder of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School), Kurt Busiek (writer for DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Image), Larry Marder (Tales of the Beanworld), and Barry Deutsch (Hereville). This list is by no means complete, and regular announcements will be made over the coming months as more details are confirmed.

Indigo Kelleigh, founder of the Stumptown Comics Fest, is returning as the Festival Director for the next three years (2011-2013). Kelleigh brings his experience in both event coordination and the comics industry to the team and is already working to make this upcoming year better than ever before. Shannon T. Stewart, Festival Director for the 2009 and 2010 fests and a current board member of the Stumptown Comics Foundation, is supportive of Kelleigh’s involvement. “We’re all elated to have Indigo, the creator of the Fest, return to the position of Director,” says Stewart, “and I personally look forward to working with him and to the amazing ideas he has in store for Stumptown over not just this season, but the next few years leading to the 10-year anniversary!”

This will be the eighth year of the Stumptown Comics Fest (founded 2004), which has become the largest creator-focused comics festival in the Northwest. The amount of comics fans attending the event continues to climb, as does the national and international attention our local event garners from artists, writers, editors, and publishers. For continuing updates regarding the event, head to the official website at StumptownComicsFest.com.

Have you attended Stumptown Comics Fest before? What do you think of the new venue? Post your comments below!

New Reviews of This Week’s Releases!

There was so much awesome product released today that we covered an amazing (and LUCKY) 13 items! Watch as we review Stumptown #4, Scarlet #2, Buffy Season 8 #36, Shadowland Elektra, Veronica #202, Cowboy Ninja Viking #8, Charmed #2, Wolverine #1, Torchwood #2, Namor: First Mutant #1, Magdalena #3, Deadpool Pulp #1, and the Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects hardcover.

CHECK OUT THIS WEEK’S ARRIVALS

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Questions? Comments? Post them below!

We had the chance to chat with John Jackson Miller, writer of the newest Star Wars comic book series, Knight Errant. His passion for the series really came through during the interview and got me really excited for the series.

TFAW.com: We know you from such titles as Star Wars: Empire and Knights of the Old Republic. You’re certainly living the dream. How did you come to work on the Star Wars expanded universe?

John Jackson Miller: Well, I’m a comics collector from way back, and I really started working in the industry on the magazine side. I was editor of a trade magazine for the business for many years. I was also editorial director for Comics Buyers Guide for many years. I wrote a number of price guides; I’m still an Overstreet advisor even now. And actually I run a comics history site, Comichron.com, that still allows me to keep my toe in the water there and write about things that happened in the past and interesting things that have come out.

I broke into the other side of it back in 2003. That was at Marvel. I wrote Crimson Dynamo; I wrote Iron Man for a year. After that I did an issue of one of the Simpsons comics at Bongo. And really I just inquired at Dark Horse and said, “Is there a need for a fill-in issue writer on anything?” and it just happened that they had an opening on Star Wars: Empire for a single issue. That ended up being the next-to-last story that they ran in the entire series, because they were getting ready for the 20th anniversary for Dark Horse to re-launch the whole line, and Randy Stradley [Senior Editor at Dark Horse] asked if I was interested in developing a series based on the era of the Old Republic, as seen in the Knights of the Old Republic video game and previously in the Tales of the Jedi comics.

TFAW.com: How did you come develop the idea for the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series?

JJM: Really what we did is we came up with the idea for that storyline–Zayne Carrick as this Jedi student of below-average abilities–and after we knew what we wanted to do, then we figured out precisely where we wanted to put it time-wise and we set it in-between the old comics and the games. That ran for a little over four years and went for 50 issues–51 if you count the zero issue, or 52 if you count the handbook that we did, all of which, or most anyway, are available at Things From Another World.

TFAW.com: Knights of the Old Republic was a really popular series. Where did you go from there?

JJM: The interesting thing is that the comics spun off opportunities in other media. I co-wrote the Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide for Wizards of the Coast when they were doing the role playing game, and I also wrote some Knights of the Old Republic fiction for Starwars.com. All of this sort of led to me being able to write prose for Del Rey. That developed last year at the same time that we were deciding what we were going to do after the Knights of the Old Republic comic book. The idea for Knight Errant actually probably started, well, it definitely started at Dark Horse first. Randy just had the basic notion of, “Let’s put a series a generation before the Darth Bane novels where there’s all sorts of Sith, and we’ll just take one lone female Jedi and we’ll abandon her out there and see what she does against all these different Sith Lords.”

TFAW.com: How did you prepare to embark on the Knight Errant journey?

JJM: I got into studying the timeline and studying what was going on in the era. And with David Marshall, who’s my editor, we worked together and came up with what is debuting in October, the Knight Errant comic series. Around the same time I had been . . . actually, before we started even thinking about Knight Errant, I had been asked to write “The Lost Tribe of the Sith” short stories for Del Rey, and those are free downloads that are on Starwars.com. Those are stories that go in between each of the Fate of the Jedi novels. I wrote those, and they looked at them and said, “You know, we’re also doing a new comic series, why don’t we do a novel as well,” and I could write both of them and see what kind of synergies we can get out of there, and so that’s exactly what we have done.

TFAW.com: Can you tell us a little more about Knight Errant?

JJM: The first issue is out October 13th, and that first storyline is called “Aflame.” That’s where we send Kerra Holt, who is our main character, out into this vast area that is controlled by battling Sith fiefdoms, if you want to call them that. It’s all sorts of different Sith Lords. All you have to do to become a Sith Lord is declare yourself one and they all think that they have the secret path to, “I’ll be the one that will defeat the Republic once and for all.”

Meanwhile the Republic is just sort of curled up in a fetal position hiding from all of this. Kerra is out there, and once she gets out there she finds there’s just an overwhelming number of things that she has facing her. You know, should she battle the Sith Lords? Should she try to help the people escape? What should she do? It’s just so difficult, and that’s what we really wanted to confront her with. She is somebody who wants to do everything; she can’t possibly do everything.

TFAW.com: How will the Star Wars: Knight Errant novel fit in with the comic book series? Will readers be lost if they choose one medium over the other?

JJM: The first issue of “Aflame” comes out on October 13. Then the Knight Errant novel hits on January 25th, which is entirely coincidentally five years to the day after Knights of the Old Republic #1 came out. You know, I saw that date and I said, “Wow, that’s bizarre.” But anyway, you do not have to read the comics to enjoy the novel. You also don’t have to read the novel to enjoy the comics that are out there, but I think we have made it an attractive thing to do, because in the comics you can only tell so much back-story; you can only get into the characters’ minds a certain amount, whereas in the novels you can describe what the characters look like, but you can’t see them in action.

TFAW.com: Right, so they should complement each other really well.

JJM: Yeah, I’m hoping to, and as far as conflicts between the two, it really ought to be bulletproof because I’m writing both of them. There are cases where I had to go back and say, “Wait, what did I call that place?” or whatever, but if there is any mistakes it’s entirely my fault.

TFAW.com: Did you write the comic book series first or did you start out with the novel?

JJM: I didn’t do the final issue of the first storyline of the comic book series until after I wrote the novel. I wanted to script all the comics first or most of the comics first so that I would have a feel for everybody, but I didn’t want to finish that first story until I had written the novel and knew, “Here’s where I’m leaving everything as we’re getting up to the novel. Here’s a couple of characters or you know, locations or whatever that are going to be relevant.” And of course there’s still time that if I were to do anything in the novel and want to make a change in the comics, we’re working well enough in advance that we’ve been able to look at that.

TFAW.com: So, Knight Errant is set 1,032 years before The Battle of Yavin, is that right? Why did you choose to set the story during that time?

JJM: The real round number there is it’s 1,000 years before Episode I. So that puts it a generation before Jedi vs. Sith. It’s 1,000 years before that, so we’re not going to run into any of these people. It’s just far enough in advance. I did that on purpose. I moved it as far back as I could without going too far back and wasting space. Not use any years that somebody might want to use later on, but I think it’s at a point in time where people who are familiar with either the Darth Bane novels or the Jedi vs. Sith trade paperback will know that this era opens with heaping gobs of Sith Lords who have been battling each other into submission. They can’t get anywhere because they’re fighting with each other, and so those are some of the themes of the story.

Kerra faces all these different questions. Can she team with one Sith against another, or is that bad? That’s almost certainly bad; you can’t trust these guys. They would like to play people off against each other. That’s what the Sith do. And you know, something else she ends up dealing with is if she were to take one of these Sith Lords out. Well, that might help the people for a little while, but now remember where we are. If it’s out here in Sith space and you’re surrounded by all these competing Sith Lords . . .

TFAW.com: There’s going to be a power vacuum.

JJM: You’re going to be in a power vacuum and you know, anything that she does is likely to set off other things and set off chain reactions. It’s a heck of a lot to drop on this kid, and she really is a kid. She’s 18. She’s the age Zayne Carrick was when Knights of the Old Republic started, but she couldn’t be any more different from Zayne.

TFAW.com: How was the Star Wars Celebration this year?

JJM: It was exhausting. It was fun to get out and see everybody.

TFAW.com: What are some of the best stories you have from this year?

JJM: Well, we did something really cool with that. Dark Horse enlisted a volunteer to dress up as Kerra Holt, the main character from Knight Errant, and she was a really good likeness. They had a contest where she was running around the convention in costume all four days, and if you took her photograph and posted it to Twitter you got a chance to win an entire bookcase full of graphic novels and non-graphic novels from Del Rey and from Dark Horse; bookcase included. That was really cool.

I think it was really funny–we were at the convention because we had our Kerra Holt, and we had this guy who had this just spectacular Zayne Carrick outfit and they were hanging out together, and appearing at the panels and everything!

TFAW.com: It sounds like a good time.

JJM: Everybody had a good time, and then we had a panel. Dark Horse had a panel Thursday and I had a panel for both the comic book and the novel on Saturday. That was really fun.

TFAW.com: It sounds like Kerra Holt is pretty much the opposite of Zayne Carrick.

JJM: Yeah, and it’s funny because you know, I can tell you, these two characters would probably not get along real well in comic book life. Certainly Kerra is far more competent than Zayne was. She definitely operates much differently. She doesn’t like sneaking around. She doesn’t like costumes. She doesn’t like subterfuge, and you know, Knights of the Old Republic was–the whole book was about con artists. That whole book was about sneaking around, and I think I counted over the course of the nine TPBs, the 50 issues, I think Zayne wears 10 different costumes; Gryph wears 10 different costumes. Jarael wears nine different costumes . . . they impersonate that many different people.

Kerra can’t stand that at all, and of course we naturally force her into situations where if she follows her impulses she’s going to get people killed.

I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and that’s our big October launch. And we’re really thrilled with all the support we’ve gotten from Dark Horse. You know, we’re on the cover of Previews this month; that’s spectacular. That’s just really cool to see.

TFAW.com: You already told us that there will be a lot of Sith in Knight Errant. Are we going to see a lot of Sith vs. Sith battles?

JJM: Oh yeah! The main conflict that the comic series opens on is a battle between two brothers. The Sith are about the glorification of self and the subjugation of others. Daiman and Odion have both taken it to the extreme. Daiman believes that he’s all that exists. He believes he created the universe, and all the rest of the people walking around are just in his mind. They’re delusions. The universe is a game that he created in his mind, so life is cheap to him because he doesn’t think anybody else exists.

While Daiman thinks he’s the only one that truly exists, Odion believes he’s the only one that should exist and he’s trying to put that right. If Daiman thinks he’s the creator of the universe, Odion thinks he’s going to be its destroyer. He relishes death. He’s surrounded by characters that are suicidal and more than happy to check out in his service because that’s what they think their role is in life. He’s got this hold over these people, that they are looking forward to a glorious death in his service. This is bad news when two guys like this fight, and it’s bad news if you’re in between the two, and there are more Sith Lords, so it’s a busy place.

TFAW.com: Are we going to see Kerra Holt go all over the Galaxy?

JJM: All over this region for sure. I’m not going to give away really all of where her travels are going to be. We’re not sure, but we are doing a couple of things that will help people on this. I am doing a piece for Starwars.com with Daniel Wallace and Jason Fry (Star Wars Atlas). Basically I’ve given them a map of where everything is, and we’re going to do a little thing for the website before the book comes out, showing where the planets are and what’s on them. Now, nobody knows who controls what.

What’s kind of cool about this is there’s really a Dark Ages feel to this. Because the Sith are all out here fighting with each other, their technology has collapsed; there’s no mass media; there’s nobody keeping the records of what’s on the other side of the hyperspace lane, and for the Republic’s part, they’ve turned off the Internet. They’ve turned off everything that permitted communications with that part of the galaxy, and that includes the big computer that tells everybody where the hyperspace lanes are. They’ve set up a firewall, and so that’s what ends up biting Kerra and her allies in the beginning, that they don’t know what’s out here.

TFAW.com: Yeah. It could be anything!

JJM: It could be anything, and it is, and what’s out there is worse than she imagines, but at the same time it acts as a check against the Sith themselves, because the borders are always in motion and everything. This is going to be something we’re doing for the website. I’m also writing a little preview short story that will be for Starwars.com before issue #1 comes out, and that will be free.

TFAW.com: Is Knight Errant written specifically for hardcore fans, or will new readers be able to follow along pretty well?

JJM: There’s nothing else out here continuity wise. I mean we’re alone, so we’re going to tell you everything you need to know, and I’ve been very, very diligent about trying to make sure we’re not doing something that is just here to connect the dots. It’s the same galaxy, but with 30 years, 32 years between this and the later novels and comics. That’s an enormous amount of time for things to change. Are there little connections here and there? Yep, sure. There’s a lot of I would call “continuity Easter eggs.” Probably more in the novel than in the comics. It’s one of those things where if you haven’t read it before, you’re just going to blow past it. You’re just going think it’s colorful, you know, that sort of thing. It’s not going to be something so overt like, “This is Gryph’s restaurant over here from the chain that was started 3,000 years ago.” With that many years between some of these things, it’s really hard to look stuff up anyway.

TFAW.com: So it’ll be really entertaining even to the casual fans that are out there?

JJM: I think it should be.

TFAW.com: What’s your earliest memory of Star Wars?

JJM: Well, I read the comics before I saw the movie. My folks bought this three-pack of Marvel’s Star Wars comics: #1, #2, and #3. They would reprint the comics and put them into these poly-bags and sell them in Walgreens and places like that, so I read Marvel’s adaptation of the first movie before I saw the movie. Then I read the novel adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back before I actually saw that movie. I don’t know why I ran around spoiling myself on these things, but that’s what I did.

Back in those days it was so hard to actually get in to see the movie because it was in the days before multiplexes, and so a movie theater would get one print of a film. And there were people literally waiting weeks to see Star Wars and I was one of them. We went and we couldn’t get in and I had to go see some awful Disney movie. So comics have always been part of it, and of course I collected the Marvel series as it went along and then I actually went through all the different incarnations. Blackthorne put out the 3D comics in the ’80s, and then I got Dark Empire when it came out from Dark Horse.

TFAW.com: And that’s where our journey starts.

JJM: Yep.

TFAW.com: Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. It was really good talking with you.

What do you think about Star Wars: Knight Errant? Are you planning to read the comic book series and the novel? Let us know below.

Check out our exclusive interview with Knight Errant cover artist Joe Quinones

Pre-order your copy of Star Wars: Knight Errant #1-2 today!

Start a Star Wars: Knight Errant Series Subscription (STARTING WITH ISSUE #2)

It’s the final day of Top Shelf Month, and to celebrate, we’re closing things down with the most hilarious interview we’ve ever posted. Please enjoy the mayhem that ensues when Jeff Lemire, creator of Essex County and Sweet Tooth, and Matt Kindt, creator of Super Spy The Lost Dossiers and 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man, interview each other! Get ready for an irreverent look inside the friendship between these two acclaimed writer/artists (who happen to be first-rate smart-a**es).

Questions from Matt to Jeff:

Matt Kindt: Where do your ideas come from?

Jeff Lemire: I steal them from you or from the Internet Idea Data Base.

MK: What’s your favorite movie pre-1970s?

JL: 2001.

MK: What’s your favorite movie post-1970s?

JL: 2001.

MK: Which author have you read the most books by?

JL: Charles Bukowski and Joe Kubert.

MK: Is that the same answer as your favorite author? If not, who is that?

JL: Matt Kindt of course. Also, probably Alan Moore, Seth, John Steinbeck, William Gibson, Eddie Campbell and a bunch of other great people.

MK: Which do you enjoy consuming more: movies, prose books, comics/graphic novels, or TV?

JL: Comics!!

MK: Have you ever played an instrument?

JL: Is that a sexual innuendo?

MK: There’s a train speeding down the track towards two people who are tied to the rails. You stand on a cliff above the track. There is a fat man on the cliff. You can push the fat man off of the cliff to throw the switch and change the course of the track and save the two lives below. There is no other option to save the two people on the track other than pushing the man off the cliff (killing him) and saving the two lives. What do you do?

JL: I wait until the train kills the two people. Then I push the fat man off the cliff.

MK: Do you have a prose novel in you?

JL: Yes, I ate War and Peace yesterday.

MK: Why do you prefer hockey over American Football?

JL: Hi-Li. I’m working on a really heart-wrenching graphic novel about two Hi-Li playing brothers torn apart by deception rights now.

MK: If you could own any car, what would it be?

JL: KITT.

MK: How many graphic novels do you think you can finish before you retire/die?

JL: One a year, every year until I check out.

MK: What do you want your kid to grow up to be?

JL: Batman.

MK: Have you almost died ever? Or been physically attacked by someone (not counting hockey games)?

JL: I seem to remember you attacking me once in a hotel room at San Diego. It was dark and everyone else was sleeping. I’m not really sure if you were trying to kill me or not, but you kept whispering something about “double agents” and “my microfilm.” Does that count?

Questions from Jeff to Matt:

JL: Top-five favorite comics ever?

MK: Watchmen, New Frontier, that Frank Miller Daredevil issue where Daredevil plays Russian roulette with Bullseye who’s paralyzed in the hospital, Batman Year One, Cages, and . . . oh yeah–Essex County!

JL: Least-favorite contemporary comic book creator?

MK: He knows who he is . . . !

JL: Favorite TV show ever?

MK: Twin Peaks–but The Wire might be better–I just don’t have the heart to really say that.

JL: You are trapped in a room with me and Chris Staros. Poison gas is pumped into the room. You have two gas masks and must choose who lives. Who do you choose, Chris or me?

MK: You’re kidding right? I put on both masks just in case one leaks.

JL: How long on average does it take you to ink a page of comics?

MK: 30 minutes

JL: Are you a Super Spy or a Giant Man?

MK: I’m a Revolver!

JL: If you could write and draw any one monthly comic for each DC and Marvel what would it be?

MK: Marvel: Black Widow. DC: Legion of Super Heroes.

JL: How many books are you currently working on?

MK: Three: End of the World, Super Natural, Strange Crimes (and I might be adding a fourth top-secret one next week).

JL: How do you juggle more than one project at a time?

MK: Lots of lying. I only have so many hours in a day but I end up drawing on one book at a time while writing in the evenings on another.

JL: When 3 Story gets made into a movie who would you like to have play Craig?

MK: I’d like to see you screen test for it, but if it can’t be you, then . . . Amy Adams.

JL: Does your wife know about us yet?

MK: She thinks “Jeff Lemire” is the title of a new book I’m “working on” . . . so technically . . . yes?

JL: If so, is she tough? Could I take her in a fight if it came down to it?

MK: Sharlink the Shark is based on her . . . so . . . no.

JL: Does your wife own any firearms?

MK: Does a blow-gun count?

JL: When you think about how f*cking awesome I am, does it make you jealous, or do I inspire you to be a better cartoonist?

MK: It’s crazy since you are so awesome–and then when I think about how I’m twice as good as you . . . it boggles my mind.

Our thanks go out to Jeff and Matt for closing down Top Shelf Month in style–remember, today’s the last day to save 20% on all of our Top Shelf books. Also, make sure to check out our five-page preview of the Complete Essex County and our seven-page preview of Super Spy The Lost Dossiers!

So do you want to hang out with Jeff Lemire and Matt Kindt as much as we do? What’s your favorite Jeff Lemire or Matt Kindt book? Post your comments below!

Top Cow’s Magdalena series follows a line of female warriors who can see into the human heart and give them the chance to redeem themselves–or feel the wrath of her Spear of Destiny! Descended from Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, the Magdalena is the protector of the Catholic Church and defender of the innocent!

Although the character of Magdalena has been around since 1998, her ongoing series, starring the newest Magdalena, Patience, just debuted this year. We recently had the chance to speak with her creative team, writer Ron Marz, artist Nelson Blake II, and cover artist Ryan Sook, and pick their brains about Magdalena’s past, present, and future!

TFAW.com: Hi guys, thanks for telling us more about Magdalena! Ron, can you catch our readers up on the history of Magdalena?

Ron Marz: There’s a Magdalena selected in each generation, a descendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. So each Magdalena literally has the blood of Christ running through her veins. The line of Magdalenas has served as the Catholic Church’s monster hunters and enforcers for more than a thousand years. It’s not a job that engenders a long life expectancy, unfortunately. Patience is the current Magdalena, but issue #1 seemed to hint there’s someone else waiting in the wings.

TFAW.com: What can you tell us about Patience, the current Magdalena?

RM: Patience is still relatively new to the job. Her upbringing was cloistered, because she was raised in an orphanage, so she hasn’t experienced much of the world. She’s constantly being pulled between her duty to the Church–some might even say her destiny–and the secular world. She’s already turned her back on the Church once, but at the moment there’s an uneasy truce between her and Cardinal Innocent, who holds sway over the Magdalena initiative.

TFAW.com: Previous Magdalenas have been related by blood–mothers passing the mantle to daughters, etc. Is Patience connected to any previous holders of the Spear of Destiny?

RM: We haven’t revealed that one way or the other yet. Since Patience was raised in an orphanage, we don’t know who her parents are yet. But it’s something that’s going to come up in future stories.

TFAW.com: How is Patience different than past Magdalenas like Sisters Rosalie and Mariella?

RM: She’s considerably less willing to buy into the Church hierarchy. Obviously the Catholic Church is a patriarchal power structure, with women given very little in terms of authority or power. So here’s this blatantly sexist organization that expects her to serve obediently, even though she’s the one with the innate ability. It’s a thorny relationship.

TFAW.com: What is her relationship with her mentor, Kristof, going to be like?

RM: Kristof serves the Church, but also sees it for what it is. There might come a point at which he has to choose between the Church and a Magdalena. For now, he and Patience are essentially partners. He has the experience, but she’s the one with the power and the Spear of Destiny.

TFAW.com: Patience seems very independent, and wary about working “for” the Church, preferring to work “with” it. Why, and how long is the Church going to tolerate this attitude?

RM: The Church will tolerate it as long as she’s serving their purposes. If she defies them . . . things are apt to get messy.

TFAW.com: Can you tell us anything about the upcoming movie?

RM: I know the basic storyline of the film, and it’s one of those ideas that makes you smack yourself in the head and go, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

TFAW.com: Is this story arc a prequel to the movie?

RM: No. What I’m doing is separate from the movie storyline, even though Patience is the main character in both. The movie is telling the best movie story it can; I’m telling the best comic story I can. Though I think the movie storyline would make a great comic at some point.

TFAW.com: Nelson, what do you concentrate on visually with Magdalena, both the book and the character?

Nelson Blake II: The main two elements in Magdalena that I focus on are action and the relationship between Magdalena and her quest. So visually, I try to have everything reflect those two dynamics. Everything having to do with Kristof or the Church represents her internal struggle, and everything having to do with monsters or people represent her external struggle.

TFAW.com: Have you made any changes to her costume to reflect Patience’s personality?

NB: Yes actually. I started off heavily sticking close to the Ryan Sook model with just some deconstruction of the functionality of the costume. But as I went on with the series, I constantly try to improve. Of course, nothing too jarring for the audience. Just because you set something in issue #1, it doesn’t mean you’re locked in. Also, the interaction with the rest of the creative team (Sal Regla and Dave McCaig) helps me to make adjustments accordingly moving forward.

TFAW.com: Have you done any research into Catholic relics or imagery for this title?

NB: I didn’t have to; I went to Catholic school for 10 years.

TFAW.com: You also did a Pilot Season book for Top Cow last year called Murderer, which will be collected in a trade this year. What was that like?

NB: Murderer was fun. That was my first full-length project with Sal. It was exciting to work with an inker who approached the work in a way that produced the kind of results I hope for when I pencil. It was also fun to work with Robert Kirkman; I’m a fan of his stories. And I learned a lot working with Marc Silvestri on the project as well. Aside from a great story, the people I got to work with made it a rewarding experience.

TFAW.com: Ryan, how do you approach your Magdalena covers?

Ryan Sook: Well, usually I kick around some ideas with Ron Marz and/or the editors on the book to see what concepts might be good for the issue. Then I do a handful of quick doodles and find the one that seems to work best and give it a little color before sending it to the guys for approval. If they like the sketch, I just go to work drawing the final cover.

TFAW.com: What has been your favorite cover so far with this series?

RS: Issue #2 where Maggie is kneeling on top of the just-defeated monster in a lake of lava is probably my favorite cover in the series so far.

TFAW.com: What’s your favorite part of Magdalena’s costume to draw?

RS: My favorite part of her costume is her cloak and the skirt that hangs from her belt. I love drawing drapery and her hood and cape feel like they have a real weight to them. They also work well as compositional elements.

TFAW.com: What do each of you like best about working on Magdalena?

RM: Great concept, great design, great creative team.

NB: For me, number one was that it’s a female lead character, which I enjoy doing. Secondly, it’s supernatural in nature so that also is a lot of fun for me because I grew up with supernatural, horror and European/heavy metal comics.

RS: A chance to draw something that allows for a real use of a classical art approach to drawing, as opposed to modern illustration methods.

TFAW.com: What’s the most difficult part?

RM: The same as most creative endeavors–keeping the quality as high as possible, but doing it on a timely basis. Comics are essentially creativity on demand.

RS: The armor. Definitely the armor.

NB: I would say, originally, the most difficult part was getting each character to look the way I wanted them to look in my head on to paper.

TFAW.com: Madgalena has had several crossovers over the years with characters like Daredevil and Vampirella–what other characters would you like to see her interact with?

RM: Beyond the Top Cow Universe, Batman seems like an obvious choice to me. Two great capes go great together.

NB: Hellboy.

TFAW.com: What’s the most interesting part of working with Top Cow and Image Comics?

RM: Top Cow gives me an amazing amount of freedom with their characters. They let me be creative and innovative, instead of treading water. That’s a great gift.

NB: I can mainly speak for Top Cow, who I work with directly. The absolute best thing is that everyone really wants the books to be good. There’s a collaborative nature where each person’s input is considered, from the editor to the printer to the artist. That sets the tone for the entire team.

RS: They allow me a lot of liberty to handle their characters the way I think will work best as an artist. The restrictions of established for 70-year-old characters are not there.

TFAW.com: What do you have coming up that you’re excited about?

RM: In addition to Magdalena, I have Witchblade, Artifacts, Velocity and the last couple issues of Angelus for Top Cow. Beyond that, Phil Hester and I are doing a Firebreather vs. Dragon Prince project that will be out in November, and then my creator-owned book Shinku with artist Lee Moder will be debuting in the spring of 2011.

NB: Mostly more Magdalena. I’m excited for this arc to wrap up, and I’m excited to start on the next story arc. Magdalena is a book that I’m enjoying and I anticipate working on this for a long time. I don’t see myself jumping on any other project any time soon other than minor side projects.

Magdalena #3 is out September 1–pre-order before then to save 20%! You can check out our entire stock of Magdalena comics right here.

Are you a fan of Magdalena? Post your comments below!

As Top Shelf Month draws to a close, we are very happy to have had the chance to interview Kevin Cannon, creator of the swashbuckling adventure tale Far Arden! Legendary brawler Army Shanks seeks to travel to the mythical island paradise known as Far Arden, but first he must contend with circus performers, adorable orphans, heinous villains, bitter ex-lovers, well-meaning undergraduates, and the full might of the Royal Canadian Arctic Navy!

Far Arden is both a throwback to the matinee serials of old and a slyly subversive modern epic, but don’t take our word for it: read on!

TFAW.com: Hi Kevin, thanks for talking with us!

Kevin Cannon: Happy to be here.

TFAW.com: Can you give us a quick introduction to Far Arden?

KC: Sure. Far Arden is a 400-page adventure comic set in an alternate version of the Canadian High Arctic. A crusty but loveable anti-hero named Army Shanks has a map to a legendary island and people come out of the woodwork to try and snatch it from him. I like to think of it as “James Bond meets Jack London.”

TFAW.com: I heard that Far Arden started as as an experiment where each chapter was a 24-hour marathon comic, created once a month. Can you tell us how it got started?

KC: A friend of mine liked some of the comics I’d been making for 24-Hour Comics Day and he dared me to do a whole graphic novel like that–one marathon per month for a whole year, resulting in a 288-page book. I was a naive cocksure young man, so I accepted. Well, after the fourth chapter my drawing arm went numb for a few days so I decided to quit the marathon part of the project, but I still kept up the one-chapter-per-month goal. So in a sense I lost the dare . . . but I still have two working arms.

TFAW.com: How long did it take you to complete it?

KC: About a year and a half. I tacked on an extra chapter at the end because I couldn’t wrap up the story in just 12 chapters, like originally planned.

TFAW.com: What made Top Shelf a good fit for the book?

KC: At first I didn’t want to approach publishers because I knew they’d reject it–the art is a bit rough and the first half is a bit wonky (a result of the marathon nature of production). But then some friends twisted my arm and convinced me that I should at least send it in and get some nice rejection letters. But as I looked around at publishers I found that Top Shelf was the only home I wanted for Far Arden. There’s this real sense that when you’re with Top Shelf you’re part of a family, and the books they put out all have a really strong voice behind them and I selfishly wanted to be a part of that.

TFAW.com: There are so many twists and turns to the story. Did you have it planned out ahead of time, or were you coming up with the plot on the fly?

KC: In the beginning everything was on the fly. That’s a skill I developed while doing years and years of 24-Hour Comics Days, where you just learn to throw a bunch of characters together in the first act, figure out what’s happening in the second act, and then tie everything together in the third act. Going into it I knew two characters–Shanks and Hafley–and I knew the secret of the island of Far Arden. The rest of the first chapter was off the cuff. But as the months went by I would jot down character notes and plot points and eventually by the end of the book I was writing full scripts. I don’t think I could have kept all those character threads in my head.

TFAW.com: Far Arden really reminds me of classic adventure tales or cliff hangers. What were your inspirations?

KC: I love serialized TV. In the ’80s, every Friday night my mom and I would watch Dallas together, and I got addicted to that little rush you get at the end of each season finale when the writers get their hooks in you. I have an especially vivid memory of some character–probably JR–being trapped under a huge dangling shard of broken glass. Actually, it might have been Sue Ellen. In any case, I still get chills thinking about it. Lost also did cliffhangers especially well.

TFAW.com: Although there are a lot of well-worn cliches in the book (circus performers! long-lost parents!), most of them are turned on their ear and edged in real tragedy. Was that your intent, or did the book just evolve in that direction?

KC: Mainly I wanted to write a story that was a lot of fun but still honest to the fact that all these characters are living in the middle of an arctic wilderness, and at the end of the day Nature is the only character that has any real say. Shanks himself is a kind of narrative surrogate for Nature–a force that sweeps through peoples’ lives and tends to do more harm than good, without meaning to. So, I admit the book goes to a dark place at the end, but I think that it goes to an honest place, given the context of the setting.

TFAW.com: How do you feel your artwork evolved over the course of the book?

KC: I gave myself more and more time to draw each page, so by the time the book ended the pages looked cleaner and tighter, and the crosshatching less frenetic. Although I kind of love that about the first four chapters–the ones that were done in 24-hour spurts–they embody a frenetic and desperate energy that I don’t think a person can infuse strategically; it has to come out of a kind of celebratory sleep-deprived exhaustion.

TFAW.com: Far Arden was nominated for an Eisner Award in the category “Best Publication for Teens.” Were you intentionally creating a comic for teenagers?

KC: Oh god no. I wrote Far Arden for myself and for the five or so 30-something friends who I knew were reading it online. If I had been trying to craft the book for any kind of audience–teen or otherwise–I think it would have killed the spontaneity and riskiness of the work. But I’m flattered by the nomination!

TFAW.com: How did you get into comics?

KC: As a kid I wanted to be a newspaper daily strip cartoonist, but then I looked into what it took and got discouraged by the lengthy contracts, monotonous output and editorial interference. Finally in college I discovered Crumb, Bagge, and Clowes and realized that I wanted to make edgy funny books like them. Getting into comics has turned out to be the easy part. Staying in comics, and dealing with the isolated, income-free lifestyle has proved the challenging part.

TFAW.com: One of your early gigs was drawing comic strips for The Scarlet and Black, the official college newspaper at Grinnell College. How has that shaped your career?

KC: The experience of doing a comic for a newspaper has taught me two valuable lessons. One is that a newspaper goes to print whether you’ve turned in your strip or not. This helped me in both my later commercial work and with 24-Hour Comics Day–every project has a deadline and you need to plan well ahead of time to be able to make that deadline. The second lesson was that I don’t live in a bubble. When I wrote something edgy that I thought was funny, it took me a while to realize that complete strangers might read it and take offense. Now, maybe they’re being too sensitive or taking a joke too personally, but being called out helped me be more empathetic, which is a good skill to have both as a comics creator and as a human being.

TFAW.com: You also have another side to your career, illustrating nonfiction graphic novels about science and history. What is that like, and how did you get involved in this?

KC: Working on nonfiction comics saved me, in a way. For several years after college I didn’t do anything intellectually stimulating and in my mid-20s I felt markedly stupider. To fix that I was considering quitting comics and going back to school but then Jim Ottaviani swooped in and offered me and my studio mates Zander Cannon and Shad Petosky a chance to illustrate a graphic novel about paleontology called Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards. Having an excuse to learn and do research has made my brain feel whole again, and so I’m thrilled that publishers keep approaching us to illustrate nonfiction books. We’ve since done books on space science, geology, genetics, and the U.S./Soviet space race. And more are in the works.

TFAW.com: I also spotted A Time to Thrill, the comic you drew on the sides of a pinewood derby car for the Pinewood Derby Art Car Show, which was amazing. Do you have any plans to do more projects like that?

KC: Thanks, yeah, that car was supposed to be a sculpture that could be raced down a track, and instead I filleted it and drew a story on the inside of each fillet (people can read it on Top Shelf 2.0). Anyway, I always try to be involved with some community art project or another because being locked away alone working on a graphic novel can make you crazy. Fortunately Minneapolis is a great scene for comics-related gallery shows and monthly jam sessions and the like, so it’s easy to find an artistic distraction.

TFAW.com: What else do you have coming up?

KC: On the nonfiction front I co-illustrated a graphic novel on evolution called Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth and that hits stores in January. It was written by Jay Hosler of Clan Apis fame and is the sequel to our genetics book (The Stuff of Life) so I’m really excited. Zander Cannon and I have started our marketing campaign early and have created a couple of evolution-related posters that will hopefully end up in classrooms around the country. Other than that, I’ve been working for the last eight months on another long graphic novel, but that’s under wraps at this point.

Our thanks go out to Kevin Cannon for his delightful responses! Make sure to order Far Arden today at TFAW.com–you can still save 20% on all Top Shelf books through August 31! So what are you waiting for? You owe it to yourself to check out the publisher’s terrific catalog.

Also, take the time to check out our six-page preview, chock-full of adventure, mayhem, and curious plot twists!

Are you a fan of Far Arden? Have you ever participated in a 24-Hour Comics Day? Post your comments below!

We’ve been fortunate to conduct some amazing, thought-provoking interviews with Top Shelf’s incredible collection of creators during Top Shelf Month this August! We’re far from finished, but here’s a quick guide to make sure you’re caught up:

James Kochalka Talks About Dragon Puncher & More: Comic book writer/artist/musician James Kochalka talked with us about his kids comics, Dragon Puncher and Johnny Boo, as well as his adult-oriented American Elf and SuperF*ckers series!

JD Arnold & Rich Koslowski Howl About BB Wolf & the Three LPs: JD Arnold and Rich Koslowski talked about their bluesy retelling of the story of The Three Little Pigs, BB Wolf and the Three LPs.

Jeffrey Brown Talks About Undeleted Scenes, Cats and More!: Ignatz Award-winning artist/writer Jeffrey Brown introduced us to Undeleted Scenes, a collection of his favorite comics.

TFAW Interviews Eddie Campbell and Daren White: Indie greats Eddie Campbell and Daren White talk to us about their new collaboration, The Playwright, as well as their upcoming projects!

Sean Michael Wilson Introduces Us to AX Alternative Manga: Writer Sean Michael Wilson talks about the process of editing AX TPB Vol. 1, a collection of alternative manga offered in English for the first time.

Nate Powell on Swallow Me Whole, Mental Illness & the Magic of Siblings: Creator Nate Powell tells us about his Ignatz and Eisner Award-winning opus, Swallow Me Whole, and shares his deeply felt views on the treatment of the disabled and individuals living with mental illness.

SAVE 20% ON ALL TOP SHELF BOOKS IN AUGUST

Have you been enjoying Top Shelf Month? What other interviews would you like to see? Post your comments below!

New Reviews of This Week’s Releases!

Get ready for some strong opinions and some awesome (and not-so-awesome) comics! TFAW.com reviews the True Blood Eric Northman Bust, Superman Secret Origin #6, Dracula Company of Monsters #1, Blackest Night Series 5 Black Lantern Action Figures, Dark Horse’s #1 for $1 Conan and The Goon, Avengers #4, Lady Robotika #2, Star Wars: Blood Ties – A Tale of Jango and Boba Fett #1, Wonder Woman #602, Batman #702, X-Factor #208, and the X-Men Curse of Mutants Storm & Gambit One Shot.

CHECK OUT THIS WEEK’S ARRIVALS

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Questions? Comments? Post them below!

Nate Powell’s dreamlike, complex Swallow Me Whole captivated comics fans on its release, winning the 2009 Ignatz Awards for Outstanding Debut and Outstanding Artist and the 2009 Eisner Award for Best Original Graphic Novel. Focusing on a blended family in the South, it deals with aging, mental illness, the bonds of siblings, and much more.

As part of Top Shelf Month, we got to ask questions of artist/writer/musician Nate Powell–his thoughtful, passionate responses are below:

TFAW.com: How did you get involved with comics in the first place?

Nate Powell: Like lots of other kids in the late ’70s and early ’80s, it was the Incredible Hulk and Wonder Woman TV shows as well as Spider-Man’s role on The Electric Company that got me into comics. I started reading them at age three or four, and moved into reading G.I. Joe, Transformers, and The Nam in elementary school. I had also been drawing since I was a toddler, but didn’t put the two interests together until I was 11. I had just started reading the Mirage Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Den, and was immersed in X-Men when my best friend Mike Lierly suggested we draw a comic together. We cranked out hundreds of pages before focusing on a series called D.O.A., which we self-published from 1992-94. I had gotten into the DIY punk subculture at the same time and began writing a zine called The Schwa Sound in 1994, but it took several years before I saw my comics and zine work as being connected endeavors.

TFAW.com: Are there any artists who especially speak to you?

NP: Arthur Adams and Michael Golden were the two artists who made me want to draw comics in the first place. I got more serious about making comics in the mid-late ’90s, thanks to Al Burian’s The Long Walk Nowhere, Chester Brown’s I Never Liked You, J.M. DeMatteis and Glen Barr’s Brooklyn Dreams, Eric Drooker’s The Flood, Ben Katchor’s Julius Knipl series, and Katsuhiro Otomo’s Domu: A Child’s Dream. Also of great importance to me are Gabriella Giandelli, Dash Shaw, Erin Tobey, Dylan Horrocks, Anders Nilsen, Lilli Carre, John Porcellino, Ken Dahl, Lynda Barry, and Farel Dalrymple.

TFAW.com: How did the idea for Swallow Me Whole start out?

NP: The story’s core emerged as a powerful dream I had in October 2001, while living in western Massachusetts. Over the next couple of years I slowly shaped it into something that vaguely made sense, as the narrative merged with another book I was writing.

TFAW.com: You worked with adults with developmental disabilities for a decade–was this your inspiration for the book?

NP: No, I try to keep a little fence between those two parts of my life, though it’s unavoidable to be influenced deeply by that line of work. My older brother Peyton has some developmental disabilities, and I feel that my perspective on life is much more powerfully influenced by him–I mean, he’s the reason I wanted to work supporting folks with disabilities in the first place. I remain wary of singular external focus on the “mental disorder” aspect of Swallow Me Whole. I feel like it’s just as much about aging, death, dignity of choice, relationships, and a repressive cultural climate as it is about disorders.

TFAW.com: Swallow Me Whole is so dense, with a vague, dreamlike quality to it. How did you come up with the overall structure?

NP: Besides the story’s birth in a dream itself, it was structured the same way all my other stories are. Once I have a sense of the “big idea” behind the story, I begin organizing my sketchbook collection of scenes, vignettes, snippets of conversation, and imagery into a master list, and look for connections and repetitions in theme or aesthetic. Once a character or two emerge that I really start to care about, I pretty much arbitrarily plug those characters into each of the scenes/situations, and try to experience how any character might navigate those scenes. For me, the narrative is generally subservient to the themes and concepts, so once the scene structure and narrative flow are shuffled around into something that makes sense, it’s already following rules of intuition instead of narrative logic, which I save until I’m smoothing out bumps in the narrative itself. I’ve always been attracted to more intuitive narrative flows, and I enjoy the deliberation it takes to truly dwell inside the story as a reader or viewer.

TFAW.com: It’s interesting that the two main characters, Ruth and Perry, are step-siblings, but they both struggle with aspects of schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. What was the purpose of that?

NP: In one sense, I think it’s magical that most siblings have a shared subjective experience within their childhood time together, sometimes resulting in what seems like a sibling cult with its own mythology, language, ritual, and way of navigating the world. As kids hit their teenage years, they naturally drift apart into their own lives, more or less, and watch that magical state begin to close.

Ruth and Perry are step-siblings that have been together since age six or seven, I think, but they get along quite well. I think it’s interesting that, as their magical sibling-realm begins to fade away, they separately struggle with the emergence of highly subjective experiential states, except adolescence has delivered them into a self-consciousness that makes them hesitant to share those experiences with each other. Also, I should note that in the dream origin of the story, Perry had his little wizard and the same kind of relationship with it and his family, but there was no rational grounding for his situation. I figured that, if this wizard were hanging around, it was certainly a delusion of his, and I let the story flow from there.

TFAW.com: Although both of them try to appear normal, they both clearly exhibit unusual behavior. However, their families don’t appear to notice, except for Memaw, who treats it as a matter of course and seems to have dealt with these issues herself. Do you think it’s typical that close family members overlook this sort of thing?

NP: I think it’s absolutely normal for a family to sweep stuff like this under the rug as long as it can be. I grew up in the South, and the Not Dealing With Real Shit method is very common for Southern middle-class Protestants. It’s different from denial–it’s more of a class-driven desire to fill out the corners of a family’s expected role in one’s culture.

Communication and intimacy were never strong suits in my family growing up, but we certainly worked through some very tough times as my brother tried to find living, working, and educational environments that worked for him in a time when autism was still practically unknown (keep in mind that in 1987, doctors’ official diagnosis of my brother’s condition was that “his brain was wired wrong.” Public exposure to autism is an extremely recent move forward.).

Memaw has certainly experienced some similar states, but I think of hers as religious-flavored delusions peppered by bipolar depression and, more recently, neurochemical rewiring from intense cancer treatment. Her adherence to Christian mythology, however, provides for a socially acceptable pocket in which to deposit her delusions and powerful experiences–neurochemically, there are few differences between brain activity in states of religious zeal and powerful bipolar states or certain epileptic storm activity.

TFAW.com: Ruth is eventually diagnosed after having a breakdown at school. Percy looks as if he might get treatment after a visit to the family doctor, but is dismissed. Is this pointing to the differences in the way boys and girls with mental disorders are treated?

NP: That section’s just about gender expectations in general, but it’s especially magnified when you have a male character who’s showing a gender-norm approved interest in something active, and a female character who’s also showing creative and constructive interest in something active, but that’s compounded by both scientific and artistic focus on her creatures.

TFAW.com: Why does Ruth have such an intense focus on insects and other creatures?

NP: I have fond memories of growing up in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama, spending entire seasons with cicadae saturating the trees, playing in ditches, surrounded by their little chants. I was aware of what these little things were, but only saw their husks as a kid, and didn’t actually see a live cicada until I was a teenager–they seemed a little mystical to me in childhood for surrounding everything invisibly. That’s made even better in adulthood, seeing how slow and uncoordinated and relatively cute they are–they’re like the Curly [of The Three Stooges] of the insect world. So that’s my personal attachment.

Ruth personally believes that she is, or can become, a conduit for their communication, and this is parallel to her emerging awareness of sentient life forms and their sovereignty. I think Ruth likes insects’ extremely non-Western modes of organization, their collectivist but decentralized structure, and their (apparent) absence of ego. She’s also attracted to the nature of the food chain itself, with insects as rabid devourers/consumers of their environment, but essentially remaining simple fodder for dominant creatures.

TFAW.com: At one point, Ruth denies that her schizophrenia is a disability and sees it as a gift, like a second sight. How do you feel about that?

NP: That’s not really my business, but it’s certainly not an uncommon perspective on mental disorders or developmental disabilities. There is certainly value in the relative extremes of the anti-medication movement, though I feel the value is largely in keeping the dialogue itself alive. Disorders and disabilities are naturally double-edged swords, and where a disorder falls on that spectrum is relative to a person’s support system and her ability to function in daily life. Ruth’s character seemed inevitably attracted to that perspective as she moved through adolescence, particularly when countered with Perry’s increasing control over his own disorder. To clarify, Ruth’s primary issue is her obsessive-compulsive disorder, through which she perceives the existence of a grand unifying structure underneath all life forms. This emerging belief system is religious in nature when coupled with her ritualistic explorations, and it is largely considered schizophrenic because she’s the only member of her congregation.

TFAW.com: How well do you think our current system treats those with mental illness? Is the stigma going away?

NP: Stigma has certainly not changed in the last 30 years (and it won’t change in another 30) except for the commodification of marketable disorders like chronic depression, but the fact that mental illness is a relatively normal part of our cultural dialogue is very promising. Keep in mind that before 1978, most Americans with developmental disabilities and moderate to severe mental disorders were literally invisible, locked away for life in public and private institutions shockingly similar to the images of “asylum” we collectively maintain. I mean, people with Down’s Syndrome were often locked away for life.

My brother first began seeing medical professionals at age four, in 1976, because he hadn’t really begun to speak yet and was showing classic symptoms of autistic development. Most doctors suggested to our parents that Peyton [Powell's brother] was screwed for life, and that the best thing for him was to be put away in an institution (fortunately, this didn’t happen). Our concept of a “moderate” approach to normalization and inclusion is very recent. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, most institutions in the U.S. were closed down, and thanks to Reagan’s shitty America, lots of these places literally just opened their doors with no social or transitional support for folks with mental illness or disabilities, which is the other main reason (after our complete lack of dealing with vets suffering from PTSD) for such a spike in homeless folks with mental illness.

Our reality is that a large, invisible underclass (folks living with disabilities) relies on public assistance and support networks to remain alive. As the Christian Right swings its illiterate paws around, this invisible class of people is in extreme danger, and as history shows, if this right-wing authoritarian trend organizes into fascism, folks with disabilities will be the first people exterminated. That’s why I remain serious about the importance of advocacy and support in light of our recent social progress on this issue, and why I identify most closely with a pragmatic socialism, though my heart dreams of anarcho-democracy.

TFAW.com: In addition to being a cartoonist, you’re a musician–how does one affect the other for you?

NP: I started being in bands when I was 14, at the same time I started publishing comics. The two are certainly intertwined, but largely their relationship is complementary. I really value the collectivist creations in a band–the production of something that requires equal, unselfish creative contributions from everyone involved. That contrasts pretty sharply with the time I spend alone in my cave, drawing comics out of my head. The existence of both, when I’m that fortunate, feels really healthy. As my comics become more concrete, linear, and politically specific narratives, the subjects I write music about tend to be more vague, broad, and internalized.

TFAW.com: What can you tell us about Any Empire, your upcoming book with Top Shelf?

NP: Any Empire is about violence. Specifically, it follows three people who grow up in a Southern town (Wormwood, the same town in which Swallow Me Whole occurs) during the Reagan era, awash in a specific privileged American fantasy surrounding violence– G.I. Joe kids whose parents were delivered into the boom of post-WWII cultural privilege. Each kid has a different relationship to violence in their personal lives, in their developing concepts of the world, and also experiences fantasy in a different way. The story follows these three people into adulthood, as their relationships to violence and fantasy change, and they work to reconcile their individual shifts in worldview, looking for answers to questions of power, choice, whether or not a better world is even possible, and how best to fight for it when opposition is deadly and crushing.

TFAW.com: What other types of projects do you want to work on?

NP: Well, also in the works are a graphic novel I’m drawing called The Silence of Our Friends, written by Mark Long and Jim Demonakos, and published by First Second. It follows two families in late-’60s Houston amidst civil rights struggles, hate crimes, cultural shifts, and relationships of opportunity. That book’ll be out in February 2012. I’m drawing a half-novel, half-graphic novel for young adults called Year of the Beasts, written by Cecil Castellucci and to be published by Roaring Brook Press in 2012. It’s a mythology-wrapped story about dealing with the inevitability of sorrow and tragedy in people’s lives. After these, I’m working on a book called Cover, co-written with one of my long-time friends, Nathan Wilson. It follows the lives of people living in a city that rearranges itself every night, haunted by a mysterious controlling entity. That’s all I can say about that one at present–it’s still several years off.

TFAW.com: Thanks for talking with us, Nate!

Browse our exclusive eight-page preview of Swallow Me Whole! Make sure to order by the end of August, when it–and our entire stock of Top Shelf books–are 20% off!

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Via AMC

Close your windows, lock your doors and clear your schedules. Come this Halloween, you’ll have more to fear than trick-or-treaters. AMC has announced that its newest original series, The Walking Dead, will premiere on Halloween night, Sunday, October 31 at 10PM | 9C. The Sunday night series will debut with a 90-minute premiere episode. Subsequent episodes will be hour-long presentations.

If that isn’t enough to whet your undead appetites, perhaps footage from the series will: the official four-and-a-half-minute trailer, first screened at Comic-Con, is now available here online in full-screen HD:

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All the hair on my arms stood up when I first saw this footage down at San Diego. I’m so excited for this show! So, what do you think? Impressed? Excited? Let us know below.

Yeah, you guessed it: the sequel to the biggest creator-owned comic of the decade–the one that spawned the number-one hit movie and the worldwide phenomenon–is here! Kick-Ass is back, and it’s just as over-the-top as ever!

When Dave Lizewski put on his mask and became Kick-Ass, he never imagined things would go this far. Now Dave comes face-to-face with a world he helped bring about, as his dreams of a world of superheroes come true . . . but will those dreams turn to nightmares?

As everybody’s favorite psychotic 11-year-old, Hit Girl, trains Kick-Ass to be . . . well, a bad-ass, Red Mist gathers a team of super-villains to take them down! It’s superhero mayhem as only Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. can bring you!

Make sure to order yours soon to reserve your copy. These are gonna go fast!

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Looking forward to the follow-up as much as we are? Let us know below.

Try before you buy! Image Comics just sent us an exclusive 22-page preview of Existence 2.0/3.0, collecting both Existence 2.0 and Existence 3.0 in one amazing trade paperback, out this Wednesday, August 25. WARNING: This preview contains language and images meant for readers 18 and older.

The breakout hit of last summer is finally collected in one volume! In Existence 2.0, self-absorbed physicist Sylvester Baladine finds his consciousness transferred into the body of the hit man who just killed him. In Existence 3.0, it’s corporate warfare like you’ve never seen as the only living prototype of the consciousness transfer process fights to survive against a wild variety of deadly threats!

Now you can read the first issue of what G4′s Blair Butler calls,”The Wanted of 2009!”

Did you read Existence last summer? Post your comments below!

CHECK OUT OUR 22-PAGE PREVIEW OF EXISTENCE 2.0/3.0

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