What’s SHOOT THE MESSENGER?
Well, AICN COMICS: SHOOT THE MESSENGER is your weekly one stop shop for comic book -EWS. What’s comic book –EWS? Well, it’s our hodge podge of everything not reviews here at AICN Comics. Sure you can find out the @$$Holes’ critical opinions of your favorite books every Wednesday at AICN Comics. But here, you’ll find special reports such as previews, interviews, special features, and occasionally news gathered here from our online brethren at Newsarama, CBR, Wizard, etc. Sure those guys are the best at reporting news as it breaks. Click on the links for the original stories. This column cuts the crap to run down all the vital information for those of you who don’t follow it as it comes in, and serves it all up with that special ingredient of @$$y goodness.
Hey folks, its me again…Ambush Bug. Forking over tons of comic book goodness to scroll through while you’re bored at home or work. Before we get into our Q&@ with ABSOLUTION’s Christos Gage and then dive into our weekly previews, we’ve got a few out of the ordinary tidbits you might want to take a look at. For that, I’ll hand it over to our AICN Comics co-editor Sleazy G to talk a bit about the unholy union between comic books and music.
Hey, guys—Sleazy G here. I’ve got something a little different this week—a look at a couple of interesting crossover events between the worlds of comics and music. I’m not just a comics guy—I’m a huge pop culture geek who loves music of all sorts at least as much as comics, if not more, so these two items grabbed my attention for both reasons.
First, there’s a band out of the Pacific Northwest called Kirby Krackle. Their songs all revolve around typical nerd stuff—comics, video games and zombies. The band is two guys who have cred on both the comics and music fronts: Jim Demonakos is the organizer of the Emerald City ComicCon and owns a chain of comics stores, while Kyle Stevens has been performing in band and solo for the last 15 years. At first I wasn’t sure quite what to expect, but it turns out these guys have genuine chops. The songs are all catchy pop tunes, a couple of which have a slightly alt-country twang to them but not overpoweringly slow. There are some standout tracks on their album: “One Of The Guys” is written from Ben Grimm’s perspective, “Naked Wii” is a ballad about a romantic evening with the girlfriend playing Wii Tennis in the buff, and “Marvelous Girls” is an ode to the ladies of Latveria, Wakanda, Atlantis and Genosha.The standard I applied here was to see whether the songs were strong enough to stand on their own regardless of the lyrics—bands that can’t tend to come off as dull and one-trick. I’m happy to report, though, that in this case some of the songs easily hold their own.
For me, there was one track in particular that stood out as the best of the bunch musically, and that was “Villain Song”. The song, told first-person by a villain who decides to reform and get out of the game but ends up too bored to stay straight, is sung with emotion and loaded with great hooks and a catchy bridge. It’s a prime example of what I said above: with any other lyrics, this song would be just as infectious, but the subject matter is delivered with a sincerity that makes the song work perfectly.If you live in the Washington State, keep an eye out—the band plays live gigs now and again as a four piece, so you may be able to go catch a show. If you’re interested in finding out more about the band (and their upcoming free single on June 30th), stop by their site at www.kirbykracklemusic.com. They’ve got pages with their bio, photos, videos, and a page to several different sites where you can download their album, so if it sounds like your kind of thing, give them a shot.
On to the second thing: Art Brut is a band I dug right from the first time I heard their ultra-catchy single “Good Weekend”, and there was never any question from the beginning that they were clever, fun and…well, and geeks. They’ve got a new album called “Art Brut vs. Satan”, which includes the song “DC Comics And Chocolate Milkshake (“some things will always be great”, the lyrics tell us).
Well, as a result of that song the band was invited to drop by DC’s New York offices for the day. They got to meet Dan Didio, stock up on free comics, and check out the drawer that contains the archived copies of MAJOR BUMMER. Music and pop culture magazine UNDER THE RADAR got to tag along on the visit for a photo spread as well as getting lead singer Eddie Argos to write an essay for them about his love of DC Comics (his favorite character is Booster Gold, by the way). Check out UNDER THE RADAR’s current issue for Eddie’s essay, and go to this page to see the photos.And don’t forget to check out Art Brut’s single, too, if you’re the kinda person who enjoys comics and milkshakes (and really, who doesn’t?).
Sleazy G is one of the Original @$$Holes and has reviewed and co-edited for AICN Comics for over eight years. Though he rarely reviews, Sleazy is the unsung hero of AICN Comics, doing much of the editing and behind the scenes work for both weekly columns.
Thanks Sleazy! Before we get into our own interview with Christos Gage, I wanted to steer you guys over to CC2K where they talked with Jeff Parker about X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. The folks at CC2K.com were kind enough to pass along this interview and I was more than happy to bring all of your attention to it. Check out what Mr. Parker had to say to Joey Esposito, CC2K Comics Editor. Special thanks to Bob Peterson for bringing this to our attention.
Bug talks with ABSOLUTION’s Christos Gage
Hey folks, Ambush Bug back again with another Q&@ you may want to pay close attention to. Christos Gage is one writer I always give a shot whenever I see his name on the cover of a new comic. He’s got an uncanny ability to convey both action and character in new and exciting ways. Gage has a new comic coming out from Avatar Press called ABSOLUTION. Even though I haven’t read the book yet, everything I have seen and read about the book makes me want to check it out. We’ll let Mr. Gage explain what ABSOLUTION is all about…
AMBUSH BUG (BUG): Tell us a little bit about ABSOLUTION.
CHRISTOS GAGE (CG): ABSOLUTION is the story of John Dusk, a superhero who starts secretly executing criminals. It takes place in a world where superheroes are a sanctioned branch of law enforcement. There aren't any mega-powerful types; no one's on the level of Magneto or Superman, they're more in the Luke Cage ballpark. Many big cities have superhero units attached to the police, much like SWAT teams. They're subject to the same rules, regulations and frustrations as any cop. John Dusk is a blue collar, lunch-pail type of guy from a family of cops. He's a veteran who's done his job, and done it well, for years. But there comes a point where he's seen one too many criminals end up beyond the reach of the law-whether because they've served their time, or there wasn't enough evidence to convict, or whatever. He's seen them go out and re-offend, which he and everyone else knew would happen. And these are not stoners or car thieves we're talking about; they're killers, sex offenders, rapists-violent criminals. Every day, John Dusk has to deal with these people, powerless to stop them. Every day, he is pushed to the edge. Finally he steps over…and it feels good. It feels like the right thing to do. He decides to keep doing it, even though he knows it's putting him on a collision course with his friends, teammates and girlfriend. The quick description I used with fans at Florida's FX con was “Imagine if DEXTER (from the TV show) was a superhero”, but that's not really accurate. Dexter is profoundly mentally and emotionally disturbed. John Dusk is a regular guy. He's not a sadist or a madman. But he's seen the pain these predators cause, and he's found a way to end it. Is it crazy to do that…or crazy not to do it? He wants to be forgiven…but he doesn't want to stop.BUG: PTSD and burnout seem to be a central focus in this book. What type of research did you do before starting the story?
CG: They're definitely key elements. I researched some of the struggles our returning troops are having-trouble sleeping, hypervigilance, etc.-and drew on what knowledge I had of cops in high stress positions. While my wife and I were writing for LAW & ORDER: SVU, we became aware that real-life sex crimes officers are required to rotate into other departments after a certain amount of time, because no one can experience those things for long and stay sane. But you can't replace a super-hero. I figured that if superhumans really existed, they'd have the same issues with PTSD and burnout that anyone who's been under fire would. Having said that, I'm not trying to convey a completely true-to-life portrayal of post-traumatic stress in the context of a comic whose primary purpose is to entertain. That would do a disservice to anyone going through it. I mean, John Dusk can mentally create a mist-like force field-so we're obviously suspending disbelief to a degree. Having said that, within the context of the genre, I hope to at least not embarrass myself in how I handle these subjects.BUG: I'm a huge fan of “descent into madness” stories a la TAXI DRIVER or Kafka's METAMORPHOSIS, where we follow a character that once appeared sane and slowly see them come unhinged. Is that what happens here or is John Dusk batshit from the get go?
CG: I love those kinds of stories too, but I also like playing with the question of what sanity really is. John Dusk isn't eating flies like Renfield or talking to his gun. He seems like a normal, nice guy, except that he goes out at night and brutally kills violent criminals. Is that insane? Or is it insane that we let a repeat sex offender back on the streets because he's served his time, knowing what we do about the recidivism rate of such people? To me it's almost safer to see someone who engages in these kinds of acts go batshit crazy, because it gives us a comfortable distance from them. With John Dusk, I want to portray someone who's under stress, sure, but whose place we could imagine ourselves in. Part of the idea came from a friend of mine who was a cop for a year. He quit, because he knew sooner or later he'd no longer be able to stand calmly and professionally in front of scumbags who he knew were horrible people but who he couldn't put away, while they're cursing him out and threatening to kill his family. He told me that eventually he wouldn't have been able to refrain from just doing the world a favor and taking them out. And this is a decent guy, the kind of person you want for a friend or a neighbor. If I do my job right, the reader will look at John Dusk and understand how he got where he is, even if they would never do what he's doing. Or maybe they'll feel that they'd do the exact same thing…BUG: Seems like you're taking a real world approach with this story.
CG: I try, as much as one can while operating under the conceit that super humans exist. I really enjoy looking at things that way-taking superhero conventions that we all know and love from Marvel and DC comics and asking, “What if that really happened?” Can you imagine what going through the Kree-Skrull War, Secret Wars, Civil War, Secret Invasion, etc. etc. would do to someone? It's a wonder the Avengers aren't all addicted to Oxycontin. Now, that's a bit of a facetious position to take, because one of the conventions of Marvel and DC superhero comics is that we all agree that forty to seventy years of continuity happened in no more than fifteen years. And we ignore the fact that Daredevil would be in a wheelchair by age forty because of the punishment he subjects his body to. Trying to inject too much realism about these things into mainstream superhero comics would undermine the very things we love about them. But that's the fun of creating your own world-you can do whatever you want, because you make the rules. In that setting, I'm trying to explore how seeing horrible things-and knowing what the worst of humanity is capable of-changes a person. While we were on the set of SVU, my wife Ruth and I were talking to Ice-T about how it affects your mindset. He was saying that he'll be on vacation, let's say at a hotel pool, and he'll start mentally matching up kids to parents, making sure there aren't stray adults who seem to be watching kids who aren't theirs. Ruth and I are always talking about how once you see stuff like that-and for us, it's just reading reports on it-you can never go back. It's always in your head somewhere. I can't even imagine what it's like for the cops who actually go to the crime scenes. A big part of John Dusk is me thinking, “This is what I'd do.” Hell, I'd probably do it to the guy in line at the post office who won't stop yapping on his cell phone.BUG: In the real world, often vigilante justice is embraced by the public. How are Dusk's actions received by the public in the world of ABSOLUTION?
CG: No one knows it's John who's doing it. The public-and many cops-react to the deaths of these scumbags the way you'd expect. No one's shedding any tears, but for some of them, it's their job to investigate the crime-and one of those investigating officers is John Dusk's girlfriend, Karen, a Homicide detective. We'll see how she feels about it all, and the choice John faces when he can see she's getting close to finding out the truth. He knows he should stop. But he can't. The threat of exposure is a huge part of our story.BUG: You've been known to write pretty hardcore action in your comics. ABSOLUTION seems to be along the same lines. How does this book differ from the previous work you've done?
CG: It's definitely the most extreme in terms of content. At Avatar, there are no editorial restrictions. The books are hard-R rated, aimed at adults. Hopefully none of the stuff is gratuitous, but I didn't want to pull any punches either. You see brains blowing out the backs of peoples' heads in graphic detail. To me, the fight between Miracleman and Kid Miracleman in MIRACLEMAN #15 remains the best treatment of what superhuman powers would really do to normal people. In John Dusk's world, there isn't anyone with that level of power, but we're looking at the same thing on more of a street level. (And let me just be clear that I am by no means comparing anything I'll ever do with anything Alan Moore does!) I definitely wanted to show the ugliness of violence-in any form-in this story, and I don't know where else besides Avatar you can really do that.BUG: Can you tell me a little bit about the art of ABSOLUTION?
CG: The interior art is by Roberto Viacava, who I believe is new to the U.S. market. He started out very good, and as I've seen the art for various issues come in (issues zero through four are fully drawn…wee wanted to be sure this book would come out on a regular monthly schedule) I've only seen him get better. He's really good at creating a real world feel while still making superhuman feats work within it, which is crucial to this book's success. We'll also have covers from Avatar's best-Jacen Burrows and Juan Jose Ryp-who I am thrilled to have pried loose from their various Warren Ellis and Alan Moore projects to contribute. And they, as well as other Avatar greats like Mike Wolfer (GRAVEL) and Paul Duffield (FREAKANGELS), along with Roberto, will be contributing pinups and other character designs that will be showing up throughout the run of the book as well as in a sort of Handbook we're calling “Crime Files.” It's one big dysfunctional family!BUG: Do you have more ABSOLUTION stories in your head after you finish this six-issue miniseries?
CG: Definitely. The initial miniseries (which will run six full issues and be preceded by the bargain-priced zero issue) definitely has a beginning, middle and end, but I know where I'd like to take things after that. So if the readers respond positively, vote with their wallets and give us the opportunity, I'd love to continue with the story.BUG: Avatar has made themselves known for handling some pretty intense themes in their comics. Were you looking for a place to let loose and shed the constraints of work at the Big Two?
CG: You know, it's not that I feel restricted at Marvel or WildStorm or with the G.I. JOE stuff or anywhere else. I grew up on the Avengers. I don't have a burning desire to write stories about, say, Wonder Man or Ms. Marvel brutally murdering criminals. In fact, if someone did that, I'd probably consider it in poor taste. But it does feel good to go into plotting a story knowing there are no editorial constraints whatsoever. I love writing company-owned characters, but I also love coming up with my own, building their worlds, and doing whatever I want to them. My dream is that I'll be able to continue to do both.BUG: Will we be seeing more books from you at AVATAR?
CG: If people like ABSOLUTION, count on it!BUG: Thank you so much for answering these questions.
CG: Thank you!ABSOLUTION #0 will be released mid-June with a special $1.99 cover price from Avatar Press. Be sure to check out this violent take on super heroes. Mr. Gage will be at this year’s San Diego Comic Con and will be giving away 5000 free copies of the book at the Avatar booth, so if you’re lucky enough to be at this year’s SDCC, be sure to check out the Avatar booth. Thanks again to Mr. Gage and Avatar for the opportunity to give this interview.
Ambush Bug is Mark L. Miller, reviewer and co-editor of AICN Comics for over eight years. Check out his short comic book fiction here and here published in MUSCLES & FIGHTS 3 and MUSCLES & FRIGHTS on his ComicSpace page. Bug was interviewed here and here at Cream City Comics. Look for more comics from Bug in 2009 from Bluewater Productions, including the just-announced sequel to THE TINGLER for their VINCENT PRICE PRESENTS series in stores October 2009, aptly titled TINGLERS.
Bug again. We’ve got another handful of previews for you this week. This time we start out with the comic book adaptation of one of the coolest sequels of all time.
STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KAHN #1 Writer: Andy Schmidt Art: Chee Yang Ong Publisher: IDW Publishing Release Date: This Wednesday!
Check out this awesome looking adaptation on Wednesday!
DOUGLAS SPENCER AND THE HOUSE OF THEY HC GN 80 page Hardcover Writer: Joe Kelly Art: Ben Roman Publisher: Image Comics Release Date: This Wednesday!
This 80 page Hardccover Graphic Novel is available Wednesday!
WAR OF KINGS: THE SAVAGE WORLD OF SKAAR #1 One Shot
Writer: Christos Gage
Art: Graham Nolan & Reilly Brown (pencils)/Nelson DeCastro (inks)
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Release Date: This Wednesday!
PLANET SKAAR is heating up. Check out how the Son of Hulk factors into the WAR OF KINGS storyarc this Wednesday!
WITCHBLADE/THE DARKNESS/ANGELUS TRINITY: BLOOD ON THE SANDS One-Shot
Writer: Philip W. Smith
Art: Sheldon Mitchell, Admira Wijaya, & Tom Grindberg
Publisher: Top Cow
Release Date: This Wednesday!
TRINITY: BLOOD ON THE SANDS hits the shelves on Wednesday!
ROBERT JORDAN’S WHEEL OF TIME: EYE OF THE WORLD #1
Writer: Chuck Dixon
Art: Chase Conley
Publisher: The Dabel Brothers
Release Date: June 24th!
THE VEIL #1
Writer: El Torres
Art: Gabriel Hernandez
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Release Date: This Wednesday!
Check out this gorgeous looking book this Wednesday!
VIKING #2
Writer: Ivan Brandon
Art: Nick Knein
Publisher: Image Comics
Release Date: This Wednesday!
VIKING #2 is in stores this Wednesday from Image Comics.
FANTASTIC FOUR #567
Writer: Mark Millar
Art: Byan Hitch (pencils)/Cam Smith, Andrew Currie, Victor Olazaba & Mark Pennington
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Release Date: This Wednesdy!
Get more Doom action on Wednesday when FANTASTIC FOUR #567 is released.
Editing, compiling, imaging, coding, logos & cat-wrangling by Ambush Bug
Proofs, co-edits & common sense provided by Sleazy G
Ad by Prof. Challenger
PLANET SKAAR is heating up. Check out how the Son of Hulk factors into the WAR OF KINGS storyarc this Wednesday!
WITCHBLADE/THE DARKNESS/ANGELUS TRINITY: BLOOD ON THE SANDS One-Shot Writer: Philip W. Smith Art: Sheldon Mitchell, Admira Wijaya, & Tom Grindberg Publisher: Top Cow Release Date: This Wednesday!
TRINITY: BLOOD ON THE SANDS hits the shelves on Wednesday!
ROBERT JORDAN’S WHEEL OF TIME: EYE OF THE WORLD #1 Writer: Chuck Dixon Art: Chase Conley Publisher: The Dabel Brothers Release Date: June 24th!
THE VEIL #1 Writer: El Torres Art: Gabriel Hernandez Publisher: IDW Publishing Release Date: This Wednesday!
Check out this gorgeous looking book this Wednesday!
VIKING #2 Writer: Ivan Brandon Art: Nick Knein Publisher: Image Comics Release Date: This Wednesday!
VIKING #2 is in stores this Wednesday from Image Comics.
FANTASTIC FOUR #567 Writer: Mark Millar Art: Byan Hitch (pencils)/Cam Smith, Andrew Currie, Victor Olazaba & Mark Pennington Publisher: Marvel Comics Release Date: This Wednesdy!
Get more Doom action on Wednesday when FANTASTIC FOUR #567 is released.
