KEL SYMONS Speaks With FOG! About His Comics REYN and THE MERCENARY SEA! - FORCES OF GEEK

Kel Symons is a producer and director and now at the helm of two great Image Comics books! Last year’s acclaimed The Mercenary Sea took at look at The Pacific Theatre in the days before the Big One, and this year’s Reyn (next issue, #2 hits shelves Wednesday, February 18) is a swashbuckling D&D fantasy affair with a hero who’s not going to be easy to root for.



Kel takes a ride on the Cosmic Treadmill to get to the depths of the sea and over yonder valley, sword in hand!


FOG!: So much to cover, Kel! Thanks for joining us! Let’s start with The Mercenary Sea. First of all, your pre-WWII sea adventure book got some great feedback last year. Not many stories take place on a submarine. How did you get to placing this story in an historical context and in a cool undersea boat?

KEL SYMONS: Yeah, I was surprised as anyone that readers seemed to dive right into it (pun sorta intended…). As for how the idea came about, I think mostly I missed my space-friends from Firefly, and also wanted to relive the thrills of my childhood with Raiders of the Lost Ark. The two came together rather seamlessly to form The Mercenary Sea.

A motley crew of adventurers and mercenaries trying to carve out an existence in the wild frontier of the South Seas against a backdrop of war.

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

DIRK MANNING Chats With FOG! About TALES OF MR. RHEE: "KARMAGEDDON" Kickstarter Campaign at FORCES OF GEEK

We love it when a campaign comes together! With over $10k raised for friend of the FOG!, Dirk Manning’s new Tales of Mr. Rhee Karmageddon.

Our Hero Mr. Rhee has paranormal abilities and in this volume heads out to protect a family of orphans in what becomes quite an interesting road trip. Demons, monsters and Cthulhu all make an appearance in this post-armageddon world.



Here’s Dirk to stretch out that origin story and tell us about the rest of his campaign!

FOG!: Dirk! Thanks so much for taking off your mask and revealing yourself to us for Tales of Mr. Rhee: “Karmageddon” in this Kickstarter Korner!

DIRK MANNING: Thanks for having me here, dude! It’s a pleasure!

You see, normally we get ahead of these campaigns, or get in on the ground floor, or the home stretch. You’ve really done it, man. You reached your goal already! How did you do it, man? Mysticism? The occult?

Honestly? I’m blown away by how quickly things have escalated with the Kickstarter for Tales of Mr. Rhee: “Karmageddon.” We hit our funding goal of $6,666 dollars in under eight hours, and as I type this – six days into the campaign – we’re already only a few hundred dollars away from our THIRD stretch goal! What can I say? Horror comic fans are very passionate and very dedicated!

Well, that, and being a devoted acolyte of The Great Cthulhu doesn’t hurt, either. [laughs]

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

JEFF LEMIRE Chats With FOG! About 'DESCENDER' on the Cosmic Treadmill at FORCES OF GEEK

That escalated quickly! Before our tape machine was cold with a hot interview with one of the most in-demand writers in the business Jeff Lemire (All-New Hawkeye, Green Arrow, Sweet Tooth, Trillium, Swamp Thing) about his scorching hot new book with Dustin Nguyen (Lil’ Gotham, Detective Comics), Sony acquired the feature film rights to Descender!


Published by Image Comics, Descender is a new science fiction comic appearing on shelves in March, and Jeff was kind enough to take the time to tell us about TIM-21, working with Dustin and creating a whole new universe.

FOG!: Thanks for joining us, Jeff! We’re here to talk about Descender with Dustin Nguyen. What is an overview of the book for our readers out there?

JEFF LEMIRE: Descender is a new monthly science fiction series for Image Comics that I am writing and Dustin Nguyen is drawing and painting.

The high concept is that it centers on a young boy, a robot named TIM-21 in a universe that has outlawed all robots and androids. There is something very special about TIM that everyone seems to want a piece of.

This is TIM’s adventure and quest to discover his own origin and the mystery surrounding his origin in a universe that hates and fears him, slowly building new friendships and companions as he jumps from planet to planet and gets closer to discovering the truth of who he is.

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INTERVIEW: SCOTT MCCLOUD ON SUPERHERO POWERS, COMMUNICATION, AND RETURNING TO COMICS - EARTH PRIME TIME AT DIGBOSTON

INTERVIEW: SCOTT MCCLOUD ON SUPERHERO POWERS, COMMUNICATION, AND RETURNING TO COMICS

Scott McCloud defined the language of comic book creation and critical thought with his lauded 1993 tome Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. In advance of his appearance at Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square on Thursday, February 5, I got a chance to talk with him about his latest 500 page graphic novel, The Sculptor, and his glorious return to comics.
 
What can readers expect from The Sculptor?
 
For starters, it’s big. It’s just under 500 pages long and it is a story about a young sculptor in New York City who had a taste of early success and is now contemplating his life as a loser when he gets an opportunity from a visitor to have everything he needs to succeed — at least physically — but he has only 200 days to live. It’s a traditional Faustian bargain, [but] this time the supernatural visitor is Death, not The Devil. I’m not too keen on devils and Hell, being an atheist.
 
The real challenge [for the main character] is an internal one because as soon as he has power to mold anything with his bare hands, he runs up against his own artistic limitations and desires, and finds it isn’t so easy. When all the other obstacles drop away, there are still those internal obstacles.
 
Then he crashes headlong into this romance at the eleventh hour, and the question of how to spend one’s days becomes critical for him.
 
It is a race against the clock in a way. He has a superpower and it’s about how he deals with having a finite number of days. He can also be penalized if he makes certain decisions, he then has less days. I was seeing these as very much comic book ideas.
 
Yeah, and this is something I had to come to grips with myself, because I was going around for decades talking about how comics can be more than just superheroes. Then I have an idea that I love but it has that superhero quality to it. This is one of the reasons why when the book starts we see that this wish of his in part grows out of the thing he did as a kid. He made a comic where he had a power sort of like this.
 

You are working with these huge archetypes. How did you go about laying out this whole story over 500 pages, incorporating superhero ideas? Was that all there at the beginning?
 
Part of it was, the idea of Death was there. The conceit of what appears to be an angel at the beginning came to me [during] the actual making of it. There were a few decades before I started in earnest working on the project, then there were the five years that took me to make the thing.
 
Is what prompted so many revisions was wanting to try different things out?
 
It was more that the story was starting to come to focus in my mind. The first revision was about fixing things. With each revision, it became about excavating what was below the crap. Seeing the shape of the story of what it wanted to be and pull that story out. Occasionally I would have a neat little bit, something that works with comics or was interesting, and then I would realize that while it might be nice—it didn’t really belong. It didn’t really have anything to do with what that story was ultimately about. If you can pull it off, if you can have the parts reflect the whole, that’s hopefully a book that feels like it has a breathing heart, [that] breathes when it is on the shelf at night.

[READ MORE AT DIGBOSTON.COM]

Cosmic Treadmill: FOG! Chats With the SECRET IDENTITIES Creative Team of Joines, Faerber and Kyriazis - FORCES OF GEEK

Imagine a land where a ragtag group of heroes with miss-matched powers are thrown together to avenge and seek justice.

That’s right, that world exists and it’s called Canada!

Let’s back up a few steps here.

Image Comics delivers Secret Identities #1 in February, and we’ve assembled our own globe trotting squad — the talented creative team for one of those awkward roundtable conferences with our masks still on!



Writers Brian Joines (Imagine Agents) and Jay Faerber (Copperhead, Graveyard Shift, Gemini) are joined by artist Ilias Kyriazis to give us the skinny on your favorite new superhero team that is almost ready to implode!

FOG!: Thank you guys for joining us to talk Secret Identities #1! I’m a sucker for a good team book — what sets this one apart?

Jay Faerber: A couple things. For one thing, this is a creator-owned book where literally ANYTHING can happen. We don’t have to put the characters back the way we found them. We don’t have to make sure so-and-so is back in costume in time for his big movie.

If you like super-hero books but are tired of the repetition at Marvel and DC, this is the book for you.

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

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THE GAMBLER (movie review) at FORCES OF GEEK

Review by Clay N Ferno

Produced by Irwin Winkler, Robert Chartoff, 

Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson, David Winkler

Screenplay by William Monahan

Based on The Gambler by James Toback

Directed by Rupert Wyatt

Starring Mark Wahlberg, John Goodman, 

Brie Larson, Michael K. Williams, Jessica Lange, 

Emory Cohen, George Kennedy, Richard Schiff

Mark Wahlberg stars in a remake of 1974’s The Gambler directed by Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Escapist). No, not Kenny Rogers as The Gambler, that came out in 1980!  Wahlberg takes on the role of Jim Bennett, a college professor with a knack for getting in deep with the wrong kinds of people while feeding his gambling habit. 

The rest of the cast features heavy hitters Jessica Lange as Jim’s long-suffering rich mother, John Goodman as Frank the whale and one of our favorite actors from HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and The Wire, Michael Kenneth Williams.

Brie Larsen (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) is Amy Phillips, a literature student working off her student loans nights at an upscale underground Hollywood casino. Amy knows her professor’s secret but is not the only student to be affected by the Bennett’s actions—mirroring points in the original film.

There is more than debt resolution and distracted teaching in this film, however. Wahlberg delivers a serious performance of a man bordering on being out of control with his habits but not an addict.

There may be more to what we see behind Jim Bennett’s blackjack face.

Some other reviewers and I were all invited to what could best be described as a meet and greet with director Rupert Wyatt when he was in town. There, we cozied up and in the least formal way imaginable—over tea sandwiches and soup in the lobby of a Boston hotel—to take advantage of a rare opportunity to talk to the director in an intimate setting. Being on the opposite coast of such regular occurrences, I took full advantage of this and broke bread with Mr. Wyatt and we all picked his brain about working with hometown Hollywood anti-hero Wahlberg his experiences making this movie. Martin Scorsese was once attached to The Gambler, but Rupert was the final directorial choice.

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

FOG! Chats With ERIK LARSEN About SAVAGE DRAGON #200! at FORCES OF GEEK

A heavy book hit the shelves this week! Savage Dragon #200 is weighing in as a ‘100-Page Super Spectacular’ and also carries with it the legacy of Erik Larsen’s career, where he has stayed with Dragon and now Malcolm as the titular character.

From the Image Revolution to the age of digital comics, you can rarely find a more ingrained creator or publisher in the industry.

He is able to playfully tip his hat to the Silver Age and Jack Kirby while moving his own book and stories into the future. 

The Image Comics CFO took the time to talk his milestone issue with us—and for that we are grateful and wish him and Dragon many more milestones in the future! 



FOG!: Erik - thank you so much for taking the time! When we saw #200 was hitting shelves, our fins went straight up! Thank you for so many awesome issues! What does this milestone mean to you? 

Erik Larsen: Every issue is a milestone, really. Each one is another number reached and another issue under my belt. The big ones, 50, 100, 150 and 200 are just that much sweeter because I pull out all the stops and involve a number of others to join in the celebration but I don’t think of any issue as ordinary, really. 

In my mind they’re all a big deal. 

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

FOG! Chats With MARK WAID About INSUFFERABLE V. 3! at FORCES OF GEEK

Mark Waid’s Insufferable is headed into Volume 3 this week and he joins us to tell us what to expect from this father/son super hero team-up book that continues to push the envelope of genre and format.

Back in May we talked with Mark about his app and subscription model, and today we check in on to see what is working for Thrillbent Comics and the challenges writing digital comic strips for the app that the creators face. 

In terms of story, Volume 3 or The Complete 3rd Season, has the insufferable Galahad and his father Nocturnus clicking on all cylinders as they go after their publicist’s Meg’s abductors. Will they be in sync for long, or will Nocturnus strangle his fool kid’s arrogant neck?  

Mark gives us some insight!


FOG!: I’ve been reading Insufferable from the beginning, I really dig it. Would you considerIncorruptible, Irredeemable and Insufferable to be trilogy, or is this a separate world?

Mark Waid: Because of the way the continuity works and Insufferable needs to be in a world that hasn’t been ravished by The Plutonian, it’s not exactly the same continuity, but then again we’ve never put a timeframe on stuff. I guess there is always the possibility that Insufferable could lead into Incorruptible andIrredeemable somewhere down the road.

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

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Cosmic Treadmill: Call An Ambulance! It's THE GATECRASHERS With ZACHARY MORTENSEN! at FORCES OF GEEK

Zachary Mortensen joins the Cosmic Treadmill today to talk about his future tale, The Gatecrashers, available digitally on his website, TheGatecrashers.com. 

Grab the first issue or the first volume to take a look at a future where ambulance drivers are heroes that can travel between cities and predicts what a dystopian future based on tech we are developing in real life today!

FOG!: This is an immersive world, how long has The Gatecrashers been in development? How would you describe the world of Palomar City to first time fans?

Zachary Mortensen: I’ve had the world in my mind for many years, but about 4 years ago I decided to officially start writing it all down.

Palomar City isn’t a dystopia or a nightmare, it is a very real world that closely resembles any overcrowded mega-city of today like Sao Paolo or Mumbai or Lagos. 

Imagine if the population of New York swells to 35 million people in the same footprint and then something like the Occupy Wall Street protest happens and an already overburdened city hall just gives up and says “you think you can do a better job? It’s yours, the Lower East Side just became an independent city-state.” 

Then another neighborhood says, “Hey we want to be independent too!”

Then another … and another…


This, combined with a decades-old failed urban initiative of traffic gates has created a very real set of neighborhood borders that literally contain and define these new Districts.

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

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DEATHSTROKE #1: TONY DANIEL Takes You Behind the Deadly Scenes - at 13th DIMENSION

Our old friend Clay N. Ferno was able to grab some time with Deathstroke‘s new writer and artist, Tony S. Daniel, at NYCC for this MIGHTY Q&A. Issue #1 is out 10/22, from DC.

Clay N. Ferno: I’ve been a huge fan of yours since Battle for The Cowl, how did you become one of the rare writer/artists as opposed to just drawing?

Tony S. Daniel: Going back to the ’90s actually, I was doing a creator-owned book called The Tenth. That’s where I started getting my desire to start writing. I didn’t set out to write the book to begin with. I was working with Beau Smith as the writer. As the series went on, I wanted to get more and more involved with the story itself. Eventually, I just flew with it. I learned that I really enjoy writing. After that, I wrote a few other series (such) as the creator-owned Image series,Silke, Adrenaline, F-5.

When I came to DC in the early 2000s, 2004, they asked me if I was interested in writing anything. At the time I said “No, I really just want to focus on the art right now,” and it didn’t really come into play until years l later when the opportunity for Battle for the Cowl came in. Then I decided, “Hey, think that’s something I might want to do.”

[READ MORE AT 13th DIMENSION]

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The Cosmic Treadmill Goes Behind The Red Curtain With CANNIBAL ISLAND at FORCES OF GEEK

When was the last time you read a good cannibal story set behind the Red Curtain?

Look no further than this new webcomic from Steve Ekstrom, Cannibal Island.

FOG!: Thanks for joining us today! Why are you inspired to do a webcomic based on the Nazino affair, and for the readers, just what is that?

Steve Ekstrom: The “Nazino affair” was an unfortunate set of circumstances that occurred during early 1930’s in the Soviet Union where Stalin and friends came up with something called the “grandiose plan” where various “undesirables” (vagrants, prisoners, people who left their passports at home on accident, affluent land-owners from rural areas, political activists) were all taken to the undeveloped eastern areas of Russia and placed into “Labor Villages” and basically told “build yourself some shelter and start cultivating this land…or die.”

Around 4000 “undesirables” were being sent to an area of Russia known as Tomsk and the local officials, when they learned how many criminals were mixed into their body of 4000 laborers, they panicked and decided to move their Labor Village to the island of Nazino which just happened to be about 2 miles long and half a mile wide.

Because rations and resources were stretched to their absolute maximum through poorly planned efficiency, the Labor Village on Nazino was only given about 20 Tons of flour dumped right on the shore of the island, right out in the open.

Before the prisoners ever arrived, people were dying of exposure and starvation. 

The criminally minded laborers began to form loose gangs. Within weeks of arriving, numerous reports of cannibalism had already been reported.

So the cannibalism is very real - in fact based on real events?

Cannibalism was already occurring in the outlying regions of the Soviet Union because of widespread famine and ecological issues of the time that were similar to what happened in the U.S. with the whole “Dust Bowl” famine. Couple that with the fact that the Communist government was seizing every bit of grain and/ or viable crop for the formation of rations for their labor camps and to feed their growing army and there you have it.

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

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Kickstarter Korner: Chatting SEX & VIOLENCE VOL. 2 With JUSTIN GRAY

Comics writer Justin Gray just wrapped up a longstanding run on Jonah Hexwith longtime writing partner Jimmy Palmiotti.

Gray, Palmiotti, writer Frank Tieri, artist Amanda Connor and colorist Paul Mounts make up PaperFilms, a creative collective that has launched yet another successful Kickstarter Exclusive comics campaign.

Among the awesome rewards available in this Kickstarter-exclusive release, supporters can actually have artwork printed in the book. 

Justin joins us today to talk about the campaign and what sets a PaperFilms project apart from the others in this interview promoting the Sex & Violence Volume 2 Kickstarter that’s running right now.

FOG!: Hi Justin, thanks for joining us today to talk about your Kickstarter for Sex & Violence #2. What does Kickstarter mean for PaperFilms? 

Justin Gray: Kickstarter provides opportunities for us to create work that might not otherwise find a publisher. I believe it also provides us the opportunity to help grow an audience for material that would struggle in a mainstream marketplace, which is dominated by a specific genre. 

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KICKSTARTER KORNER: 'DEER EDITOR' with Writer Ryan K. Lindsay at FORCES OF GEEK

Since we profiled his weird and wonderful Monkeybrain book Headspace back in March, Australian writer Ryan K. Lindsay has become one of our favorite independent comic creators.

Other books of note you may be interest in are a run with My Little Pony: Rainbow Dash, and his own books Fatherhood and Ghost Town.

Ryan joins us today to promote his Kickstarter for Deer Editor #1 about an investigative journalist deer, stalking the streets for clues and justice.

This equine-noir story, like the rest, starts with the first trot.

FOG!: Thanks for joining us again, Ryan, this time for a Kickstarter Korner. The campaign just started, correct?

Ryan K Lindsay: Yep, in the very first days of our wild adventure.

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

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KICKSTARTER KORNER: FROM CAN MAN TO FILE 13; CHILDHOOD COMIC GETS REIMAGINED FOR KICKSTARTER

This edition of Kickstarter Korner kicks the Can with Dan Hosek and also, apparently Keith Koppenhoefer, who jumped in so as not to be silenced any more!

File 13 is a fun retro superhero comic looking for that last boost to make a childhood dream a reality.

Consider your pledges after the jump! 

FOG!: Dan, thanks for taking the time to tell us about File 13! What’s the general scoop?

Dan Hosek: Thanks for having me, Clay. File 13 is a full-color, monthly series about Scott Solson’s high tech, high adventure “hero’s journey” (with a healthy dose of absurdist humor thrown in). The stories draw on equal parts classic superhero storytelling, pop culture references, high drama, science fiction, and historic events that are stranger than fiction.

At its best, it will drop your jaw then make you laugh three pages later. Its also the culmination of a 30 year journey for me and this character.  I created the basis for the book—well, the book now hardly resembles anything like what I created when I was 12, but the basic characters are there.

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DEFEND YOURSELF: ALLEN MCRAE OF IMPROVBOSTON’S COMEDY, AMERICA

Starting this Friday and and ending on Independence Day, ImprovBoston is giving us an original sketch comedy revue show with musical guests and even a few songs. Celebrating all the shaving bumps and concealed warts of this nation of ours — Comedy, America— takes ImprovBoston’s holiday themed sketch comedy series from the Old West to Disney and of course American presidents. Comedy writer and director of the show Allen McRae joins us to talk ceremonial turkey.

Who are you and what are you doing?
My name is Allen McRae. I am the head writer and director of Comedy, America — an all new sketch comedy revue being presented every Friday in June and also on the Fourth of July at ImprovBoston in Central Sq., Cambridge.

How long have you been doing stuff at ImprovBoston?
For about six or seven years now. I lived in New York for a little while when I got out of college, doing comedy there. When I moved back to Boston I did comedy at this place called The Tribe. When they closed down, I started doing comedy at ImprovBoston. I took a couple of years off because I was in a band, as you know (The Tin Thistles!).

[READ MORE AT DIGBOSTON.COM]

Indiegogo GO!: ALICE AND THE INVADERS FROM WONDERLAND Interview with Bret M. Herholz at FORCES OF GEEK

Bret and I met over the weekend at the strangest place, a crafts fair in his hometown of Worcester, MA, just minutes after a fender bender outside, and in a room with local Celtic punk bands playing amidst tables loaded with cupcakes, taxidermy, necklaces and pins. 

Naturally, I gravitated to the comic book artist there and looked at his book, Sherlock Holmes and the Painful Predicament of Alice Faulkner and enjoyed his portfolio of drawings. There was a steampunk Batgirl in his signature style as well as Sherlock Holmes vs. the deadly Daleks. 

His new book takes on Alice in Wonderland and puts her Alice where she should be, a strong hero and her adventures after she returns home. Bret’s Indiegogo campaign runs until June 20th. 

FOG!: Thanks for joining us, Bret! What’s new in Wonderland?

Bret M. Herholz: Thank you Clay! Quite a lot has happened actually!
The story I’ve written picks up whereAlice’s Adventures in Wonderland left off.

We come to find out that all of Alice’s adventures weren’t all just a dream. The Queen of Hearts found a way to break through to Alice’s reality and her army has taken over the world.  

Alice manages to escape with the help of some of the friends she has made in her adventures down the rabbit hole such as the Mad Hatter, March Hare and White Rabbit. The bulk of the story takes place six years later with a now 16 year old Alice continuing her fight against the Queen of Hearts.

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

BRIAN WINKELER CHATS UP KNUCKLEHEADS ON THE COSMIC TREADMILL AT FORCES OF GEEK

We’ve been enjoying Knuckleheads since the beginning.

Writer Brian Winkeler was kind enough to join us to talk about issue #6 available today on ComiXology.

Coupled with Robert Wilson IV on art, this MonkeyBrain title is full of comedy, monsters, cute dogs and impossible breakfast scenarios.

Aliens gave Trevor a fist with special powers, but will he be able to control it for that much longer?

Here is Brian to reveal the buildup to the latest issue.

FOG!: Hey Brian - thanks for joining us for Knuckleheads! Seinfeld voice - “What’s the deal with Crystal Fist?”

Brian Winkeler: The weapon or the “superhero?”

The weapon is kinda sorta maybe like a Green Lantern power ring but Trev (our protagonist) was way hungover when he got it so he’s super fuzzy on it. All he knows for sure at the start is he can use it to cheat on video games and steal Netflix.

He learns more as the series progresses.

Issue one brings the band all together, a ragtag bunch consisting of our ‘hero’ Trevor, his roommateLance, hipster Pizza Guy and hot British chick, Emma. Are more cats going to be added to the main group?

Issue #6 introduces a couple of characters who may or may not be sticking around for volume 2, and #8 introduces a brand new character who has been with us from the beginning. That confusing sentence will make sense as soon as you read #8.

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

MARK WAID AND HIS THRILLBENT APP TAKE A RIDE ON THE COSMIC TREADMILL AT FORCES OF GEEK

As comics move from the spinner rack and the shelf to the phone and tablet, and controversial acquisitions have made the premier comics app for the iPad behave differently, companies are looking to deliver these books in new ways.

And Mark Waid has been one of the industry’s most vocal advocates for change and innovation.  And has every right to.

Photograph by Seth Kushner

Waid has done everything in comics. 

Seriously. 

And he’s taken challenges like no other. 

Move to Florida and join a comic start up?  Check.  Co-write a weekly series for a year?  Check.  Write some of the biggest characters ever to great acclaim?  Check.  Become a mentor to new talent in the industry?  Check. Write a creator owned series?  Check.  Be part of a new imprint?  Check.  Work as editor-in-chief for a comic company?  Check.  Sell off your collection to put the money into a new digital comics company, Thrillbent?  Check.  Become a comic retailer?  Check.  

And those are just the broad strokes.   

Mark joins us to talk about his company’s Thrillbent Comic Reader for iPad and an affordable monthly subscription model.

The Thrillbent website was started in 2012 to inspire innovation in the digital comics space, and Mark continues to be forward thinking with his new app and subscription model.

With a ton of great titles, Mark and Thrillbent are taking the comic market to new heights.

FOG!: Thanks for joining us today, Mark, hot off the heels of C2E2. How was the show?

​Mark Waid: Genuinely invigorating.  I have to say, I’ve not enjoyed Chicago comic conventions for a long time, not since my thousandth lame experience at the Rosemont Center, but these guys know what they’re doing. Wide aisles, good attendance, good guest lists…I’m a fan.​

Just last week saw the launch of the Thrillbent iPad app. We’ve been following Thrillbent since the beginning. Was the goal eventually to get here, out of the browser space and onto tablets?
​
It was certainly A goal.

But I’m not really going to be satisfied until we can be in a place where you can access us through iPads, Chromecasts, Rokus, Android phones, everywhere. 

Onward we march.​

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

JC DE LA TORRE’S STAR MAGE: FROM KICKSTARTER TO IDW at 13th DIMENSION

Last week saw the debut of JC De La Torre and Ray Dillon’s Star Mage from IDW. We caught up with JC for a MIGHTY Q&A about his influences, the Kickstarter process and merging a classic war-in-space tale with magic to give us an identifiable teenage hero!

Clay N. Ferno: Thanks for joining us, JC! Care to tell us how you got from Kickstarter to IDW with Star Mage? It seems like the response so far is spectacular!

JC De La Torre: Thanks so much for having me. It was such an interesting process to get to where we are now. The story of Star Mage actually started out as a novella that I was dissatisfied with. It just didn’t feel like it was coming together as I hoped. I happened to be reading an IDW Doctor Who comic and that dim light bulb of mine had a momentary flicker and I realized that Darien’s story belonged in a visual medium — what better place than with comics?

I started doing research and whatnot. I knew I wanted high quality artwork and I can barely manage stick figures — so I needed to hire an artist. I went through several potentials before realizing that if I truly want the best art, I needed to pay for a pro. I found Ray Dillon and he was exactly what I was looking for. I paid for the first issue out of my own pocket but to continue the series we were going to need some help, so we turned to Kickstarter. If our Kickstarter failed, Star Mage would have been DOA. It was thanks to those supporters, my defenders of the realm as I like to call them, we kept the lights on and allowed us to continue to develop the series.

IDW knew of the project thanks to Ray, who had previously done work with them and got some of the artwork of Issue #1 in front of Chris Ryall of IDW. There were a ton of starts and stops in the first year and a half developing Issue #1. There were days where it truly seemed like we’d never finish — but IDW stood by us through and through. When we finished Issue #1 and realized due to his demanding schedule Ray wouldn’t be able to finish the series, they trusted me to find another artist of the same caliber. Franco Cespedes took over and once we got our first three issues in the can, the IDW machine began churning.

Response to Issue #1 has been overwhelming. We’re very close to a sell-out of our initial run and we just had a signing at Heroes’ Haven Comics in Tampa where the line was out the door, the store sold out of their copies and we actually had to dip into our convention stock to be able to support the masses. The reviews have been mostly positive so it appears to really be well liked.

It’s very exciting.

[READ MORE at 13th DIMENSION.COM]

COMIXOLOGY ACQUISITION Q & A WITH TIM GIBSON OF MOTH CITY ON THE COSMIC TREADMILL AT FORCES OF GEEK

Moth City (Thrillbent) is one of our favorite and innovative digital comics, so when we heard of the pending merger between ComiXology and Amazon we had questions!

Who better to ask these to than Moth City’s own Tim Gibson?

We get into the nitty gritty of the pinch, swipes, scans, payments and tablet wars with our favorite Kiwi after the jump!

FOG!: Have you ever read a comic on the Kindle app? Kind of atrocious, right?

Tim Gibson: Hah, I’ve only read one comic on my Kindle, and that was Tumor by Joshua Fialkov and Noel Tuazon many years ago. It was a great comic but I haven’t been back to try another comic on that platform.

What’s your initial reaction? Glee, excitement? Disappointment?

Cautious optimism.
  
Do you think creator percentages for something like the ComiXology Submit program will stay the same? How does this affect creator owned projects?

Amazon has always been open about the royalty rates they offer authors, 35% if you sell your work for less than $1.99 or more than $10, and 70% if you sell between $2.99 and $9.99. I believe our royalty rates via ComiXology are locked behind a T&C wall, but they aren’t bad.

There would probably be more comics on Amazon right now taking advantage of that 70% rate if they didn’t also have a strange ‘Delivery Fee’ that cuts into the author’s proceeds for supplying high resolution art at larger file sizes.

I have no idea if ComiXology’s rates will change, but I would like to see our books integrated into Amazon’s store at either rate.

ComiXology seems to be forward thinking and has good customer service (these days). Do you picture a total absorption of the company?

I hope not, and I doubt it. Everything said to date implies that they will keep being the great company they are. Hopefully Amazon just gives them a new audience, and they give Amazon some comic selling tips!

Do you see the iPad comics Apps: iBooks vs. ComiXology going after each other’s throats? At least the competition is healthy, right?  I’d imagine Amazon stops developing it’s various comics properties and shifts all comic attention to the ComiXology app, yeah?

I’m not sure that any independent creators are using iBooks or Amazon in anywhere near the same capacity as they are using ComiXology. But yes, I would hope that Amazon would follow ComiXology’s lead when it comes to technology and systems for comics. I imagine they’ll continue publishing their own stuff through their imprint Jet City Comics.

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]