Elephant in the room

This has been an interesting week. The 21st Prophet issue came out yesterday –first one of the new run that me and my pal Simon are doing.

 

I was part of a roundtable interview with Newsarama where I ended up shit talking the catwoman writer.

Newsarama edited it out the worst of what I’d said but left the interviewer’s snark about Liefeld’s work, which escalated into a little something-something.

 

It’s been important to me on this Prophet to never turn around and say I’ve always loved Liefeld’s work.

But this industry being what it is has me in his corner, and I will say that as the creator of the characters and universe I’m playing around with he’s been nothing but enthusiastic and supportive —

 Think about Ditko or Kirby’s feelings on what happened to their characters. “Yo Alan moore, how you like those banging new movies dawg?” So it feels clean to work with a guy who likes where his creations are going and I’m thrilled at the chance I’ve got to jump in the mainstream arena with pretty much total freedom to make something I’m proud to be part of.

 

I didn’t want to write this as a big fuck Newsarama, but  I want us to be able to actually have real conversations in comics. I think we need to be critical of each other’s work, and this industry is especially weak on issues of race and gender. I want to see how good we can all get, and I want bullshit to be called when it needs to be called.

 

So here’s a big chunk of the end of the Newsarama talk which has been taken down:

 

Brandon: Speaking of Ross Campbell(artist on Glory) and his stuff, he’s going through this period where he’s reassessing his work, really looking at how he’s approaching women.  He’s actively trying not to be sexist in his own work, and talking about that a lot.  His being given this character is almost a chance to make right how DC fucked themselves up on their relaunch and how they were really shitty to their female readers. Ross is coming in and being able to actually be thinking about them, because he comes off as one of the creators most aware of the female reader and how female characters are being depicted in comics.

 

Joe Keatinge (writer on Glory): That’s definitely a big part of it too.  I mean, character comes first before any big political statement, but I want a female lead who can break Supreme in half, because why not?  That’s definitely what we’re going for here.  

My goal is to make her and one of the characters in the book who I won’t name, but who appears in the first issue, into two of the biggest bad asses in comics.  Their gender doesn’t really come into it for me.  I don’t see why it should.  It’s just about who they are.

 

Brandon: It doesn’t hurt to point out they’re characters a teenaged girl could read about and not feel embarrassed.

 

Joe: Exactly!  I wanted this to be a book that I could show to a girlfriend or my parents, and not be ashamed.  I want a 13, 18, 20 year-old-girl to read this and not be embarrassed because Catwoman’s fucking Batman or whatever.  I want this to be something where it can be enjoyed by them just as much by a 13, 18, 20-year-old boy, whatever.

 

Nrama: Well, the Extreme books of the 1990s were known to deal in certain stereotypes regarding women’s – and let’s face it, men’s – chests.  And rear ends, and guns, and shoulder pads, and feet that were always off-panel….what are the challenges in moving beyond that stereotype.

 

Joe: I think you just have to make the kind of comic you want to read and go from there.

 

Brandon:  I think it’s important to try to address that shit too, though.  It’s like when they brought back The Spirit and brought in Ebony, and they had that smug thing in the back of the issue where they go, “Here’s how we dealt with Ebony!  We made her a hot chick!”  They just screwed the pooch so badly on that.

You have to bring this stuff up, I feel.  It has to be addressed and not ignored.  And Ross’ way of drawing Glory, I feel, kind of does address it.

 

 Joe: There’s a difference, though, between addressing it and having a political message in it that overpowers your book, and not being able to tell a story, you know what I mean?  We were methodical in making Glory look the way she looks now, as opposed to how she looked before, but at the end of the day, I just want to make some really great comics with Ross.  And that’s more important, I think, than trying to change someone else’s political viewpoint.

 

 

Brandon: It’s important, I think, how you show the story.  It doesn’t necessarily need to be a soapbox comic, but how you depict female characters shows how you’re approaching it as opposed to how they were depicted in the past.

 

Joe: True.  That’s certainly fair.  Tim, what’s your opinion on all this?

 

Tim: I have a character who’s a dominatrix who wears a leather mask and a thong, so whatever.

 

Brandon: But I kind of think that sort of stuff’s okay.  It’s all about owning your shit.  I don’t have any problem with DC’s Catwoman because of the content; it’s because the dork from fuckin’ MTV’s Real World is a shitty writer.  That’s what bothers me.

 

Joe: Whoa!

 

Brandon: It’s okay.  DC’s not calling me anyway.

 

That’s the great thing about Image, though.  I was just reading an interview with Eric Stephenson, and that dude actually talks about comic books like a reader, and he’s not just trying to sell you shit.  He was talking about the Grant Morrison X-Men stuff as a reader, and why he loved it, and what he didn’t like about it.  And I think that as a comic book community, we have address things as adults, and not just as marketing people.

 

Joe: My thing on Eric Stephenson is that he’s kind of the not-so-secret hero of comics in the 21st century.  Not to kiss the guy’s ass too much, but the fact that he is responsible for bringing me onto this Extreme stuff, that he brought Brandon on as well, that he’s giving all these chances to new talent with a really no-bullshit attitude….I think if you look at Marvel’s big lineup right now, with the exception of Brian Michael Bendis, who was brought into Image by Jim Valentino, everyone else was brought in to Image by Eric.  I know that I owe my career in a huge way to him.  Anyway, Eric Stephenson, am I right?

 

Brandon: That’s a huge reason why I’m invested in the Prophet stuff right now.  Seeing how much work he put in to get my King City stuff into print after it got into all this bullshit with the previous publisher…Image doesn’t get a big paycheck from that.  It doesn’t get anything for them.  It’s just that he liked the work and wanted to get it out there.  That makes me want to back them, and to work with them as a publisher.

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So000 yeah.

Anyway here’s Simon’s cover for Prophet 25 (with colors by Jason Wordie)– so cool.

Simon’s site http://www.robot-blood.blogspot.com/

and Jason’s  flickr:http://www.flickr.com/photos/43870122@N07/

and a spread from the guts of the next issue, Richard Ballermannnn’s colors on this came out so cool:

 

Aside from Prophet I just sent the King city collection off to get printed up.

Here’s a title page Image from that:

and some recent pages from my sketchboook. A couple drawings from Alien and I redrew  Yuri from an Adam Warren Dirty pair.

I drew this one watching Devil in a blue dress, I like that movie.

and some drawings of my pal Liz one of my lady Marrriiannnnn and Groucho marx who I also love.

and here’s some naked ladies just to point out that I’m still a classy dude.