KICKSTART DAY: Screenwriting Team Help Forge BLACKSMITH

KICKSTART DAY: Screenwriting Team Help Forge BLACKSMITH

Pulled from www.newsrama.com

By Chris Arrant March 2, 2011

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/kickstart-day-blacksmith-110302.html

Kickstart has become an avenue for talented writers to jump into the diverse medium of comics. Steered by top-notch editors Jimmy Palmiotti and Larry Young, these books are unique in both their story and format – slimline graphic novels priced at under $10 and available not just in comic and bookstores but major retailers like WalMart. For the upcoming Spring book Blacksmith, two entrepreneurial young screenwriters are bringing a new twist to the classic action story with the graphic novel Blacksmith.

Blacksmith tells the story of the newest member of a secret society of weapons-makers that have fueled the United States’ dominance in the past two hundred years. From industrial age technology to 21st century tech, the Blacksmiths have kept with the times – and kept on the cutting edge. But when Blacksmith Alex Malloy finds out a weapon of his was used to commit an unauthorized public assassination, he’s on the run – to stay one step ahead of the law while tracking down his weapons now in the wrong hands. The story is by screenwriters Malik Evans and Richard Sparkman, who are joined by artist Alberto Muriel (A-Team: War Stories: Face, Legion: Prophets) to tell this twisted take on an action tale.

Nrama: So guys, what can you tell us about Blacksmith?

Evans: Well, the Blacksmith is a very original concept, but at the same time with a familiar character. A character we’ve all been accustom to and seen in movies in the past decades. You can even go back far as to 1963 with the film Dr. No featuring the first days of the James Bond series with the character Q.

Sparkman: Instead of concentrating on your hero who uses the weapons, we’ve focus on the character that actually makes them. Hopefully this will set us apart from other projects. We are taking a different angle on someone you already recognize.

Nrama: Like you said, this is not about the guys who need the weapons – but the guys who make them. At the center of Blacksmith is a secret society of blacksmiths – weapons-makers – who have supplied the U.S. Government for years. Tell us more about their handiwork and history.

Evans: Well, that’s really the cool thing about this concept, is the mythology of the Blacksmiths.

Nrama: Mythology? Just how long have they been making weapons?

Evans: These Blacksmiths have created and supplied the military dating back to the 18th century.

Sparkman: They have been involved in turning the tides of all major U.S. battles: the Civil War, World War I & II and Desert Storm, just to name a few. Also another intriguing factor is no one really knows the true identities of the Blacksmiths.

Nrama: And who is the particular blacksmith we’ll be following in this one-shot?

Sparkman: Our main character is Alex Malloy, a young male who is a weapon genius known as the Blacksmith. He’s in a league of his own and the top-notch Blacksmith of his era. His specialty is guns and various heavy artillery.

Evans: The authentic thing is that the Blacksmith is by no means a kick ass character, but rather a guy that’s a few steps away from being a nerd, building some of the most advance weapons in his own basement.

Nrama: And in your story Alex is having to hunt down one of his toys when a nefarious someone gets a hold of it. What kind of weapon did they take? guys?

Evans: Well, it’s not really just a particular weapon but plans for his different creations.

Sparkman: Actually the most dangerous weapon is his mind.

Nrama: And who are the bad guys exactly?

Sparkman: The bad guys are an assemblage of Black Ops soldiers that no longer work for the government, but for themselves and the highest paycheck.

Evans: With every great protagonist there always should be a better antagonist. Your hero can only be as good as your villain.

Nrama: This is a really interesting spin on the action movie. How’d you guys come up with it?

Evans: That’s one of the most challenging things in this business is coming up with something no one has ever seen or heard before. Personally we get tired of seeing the same material and so many remakes flooding the business.

Sparkman: We’ve just decided to take another route with the hero. Instead of your typical macho man we’ve chose to use the underdog. We can easily spend hours, days and even months trying to brainstorm new ideas. Blacksmith is just the beginning; we have more great things cooking in the oven and soon people we get a taste of what we have in store.

LIE TO ME Writer Mashes LOST, X-FILES in Kickstart's WARD 6

 

LIE TO ME Writer Mashes LOST, X-FILES in Kickstart's WARD 6

Pulled from www.newsrama.com

By Chris Arrant January 12, 2011

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/kevin-fox-ward-6-kickstart-110112.html

 ENLARGE

You might say you had a crazy day every now and then, but it's nothing like what's happening to six people in the upcoming graphic novel Ward 6.

In this standalone OGN scheduled for release in comic stores and Wal-Marts nationwide at the end of January, five residents in an antebellum psychiatric ward find out they're not alone. With nothing to bond them but the memory loss as each other, they bond together to determine a way out. Part Sci-Fi and part psychological thriller, Ward 6 explores the story of these five individuals and the bizarre things they experience in this unusual mental ward.



Nazis Win WWII? The Future is Wrong in HEAVY WATER

Nazis Win WWII? The Future is Wrong in HEAVY WATER

Pulled From www.newsarama.com

By Chris Arrant January 10, 2011

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/heavy-water-nazis-wwii-interview-110110.html

Comics are a medium where storytellers have complete freedom to let their imaginations go as far as they want. We've seen countless speculative futures where everything that can go wrong as seemed to, and in the graphic novel Heavy Water it's showing a world where Nazis won out in World War 2 but one man finds out how wrong it is – and finds a way to travel back in time and set things right.

Heavy Water is part of the launch titles for California-based publishing newcomer Kickstart Comics. Spiraling out of a film production company of the same name, Kickstart brings with it several talented screenwriters with innovative concepts that seem like ready-made comics. In the case of Heavy Water it's Jonathan W.C. Mills, who directed the recent punk rock documentary We Were Feared and sold a spec script back in 2008 called Inside Passage. Working with Mills on Heavy Water is artist Alberto Muriel, who illustrated A-Team: Face and Legion: Prophets for IDW.

 ENLARGE

Newsarama: When I was talking to Kickstart about Heavy Water, they described it as Saving Private Ryan meets Time Machine – how would you describe it, Jonathan?

Jonathan W.C. Mills: That’s a fairly accurate description as a logline, but Heavy Water is bigger than that. I was inspired by Maus and of course Watchmen...books that reach beyond themselves. On one hand Heavy Water is a classic heroic journey with amazing action and a sweeping historical epic. It reaches out and grabs you by the gut and makes you care about this rather quiet man who ends up making enormous sacrifices for something he isn’t sure he believes in. On the flip side is the intellectual component of the story; the time travel, which engages on a much different level; cause and effect, totalitarianism and fascism, love and sacrifice...these are just a few of the themes running through Heavy Water.  At its heart this book is an action filled adventure, with some very complex and exciting intellectual underpinnings.

Nrama: So what’s the world like in Heavy Water?

Mills: There are two worlds that are explored in Heavy Water. One is the future totalitarian state run by the Nazis with a breathless efficiency. I imagined this future as a place full of bright light and open architecture; a culture built around the refutation of the very idea of privacy. To me the goal of the Nazis was to create a master race; where their imagination failed them is that even if they were to achieve a plurality of perfect physical specimens they would never, ever truly control people's minds and hearts. Entropy is found in every system and cannot be eradicated. The second world we spend time in is Norway in 1946. In that part of the book it's almost always dark and snowing, and our colorist really captured some amazing snow effects that seem to leap off the page. But the world itself is a familiar one. It's full of trees, wilderness and natural vistas not seen in the future. It roots us in the familiar and anchors the story.

Nrama: And who is the man that can change this horrific future?

Mills: Ben Haukelid is an everyman of the future. He is Neo from The Matrix; someone who is going about the grind of his life knowing that something bigger is waiting for him but unable to figure out what that ‘thing’ is. Then fate finally reveals the answer to him. What’s interesting with Ben is that he truly grows as a character through this story, he becomes someone and it was really fun, as I wrote, to see him evolve into this heroic man. I really cared about him by the end!

 ENLARGE

Nrama: You mention that Ben exists in that future where the Nazis rule it all. What's his position in society?

Mills: Ben is a mid-level bureaucrat working within the system. He wakes up, goes to work, works out, goes home. His life will be very familiar to many urban dwelling citizens right now. He's working to live and living to work and he hates it. The only thing that gives him joy is his amazing girlfriend Floria who turns out to be much more than even he bargained for. She is truly the hero of the story in many ways; she's smart, brave and passionate. Things that Ben, at least initially, isn't.

Nrama: What triggers Ben to start asking questions?

Mills: His involvement in the narrative is, at first, purely a function of fate. He is in possession of an item that is extremely important; it's a critical piece of history in a world that doesn't have any. The Nazis have destroyed it. Yet he knows nothing of the mission to change time. The link is his girlfriend, Floria, who discovers his historical secret and knows enough to act on it. Ben is not proactive, that comes only when he casts of the shadow of the time he lives in...and in that way he really starts off as an anti-hero.

Nrama: Although I think this is your first comic, it sounds made for comics – Nazis, time machines, alternate futures. How’d the idea for Heavy Water come about?

Mills: The germ of the idea came from reading Richard Rhodes' amazing book, The History of the Atomic Bomb, which is a freakishly fascinating story of how the atomic bomb came to be. Everything from that moment on was a product of an overactive imagination and a lot of ‘what if’s’...

Nrama: And how’d you go about deciding comics were something you wanted to do with this story?

Mills: I will admit that I was not a comic book reader growing up. I was a bookworm. But this story needed to be told and when the opportunity presented itself to make it as a GN it seemed like the perfect fit; it had so many terrific visual elements and yet was a compact story so I jumped at the chance to do it. Since then I've started to dip my toe in the world and have a bunch of friends who are involved with Comic Book Sundays (C.B.S.) here in Los Angeles and have a lot more experience writing comics than I do. For me, telling a story graphically just makes sense...

Nrama: Although you're new to comics, you've done a bit in film – you sold a spec script called Inside Passage as a movie, and directed the puck rock documentary We Were Feared. How'd you find yourself a writer, and what's it like to jump into comics?

 ENLARGE

Mills: I think anyone who writes professionally does it because there is very little else they are suited for. I count myself very lucky to be able to use my imagination to make a living and was very excited to have the opportunity to work with Kickstart on this book. Alberto Muriel took the words and layout and made it real on the page, which was an incredible experience for me. I do hope it’s the first of many collaborations because I believe this form of storytelling has enormous potential for me.  

Nrama: Let's come back fill circle and talk about the title of this graphic novel, "Heavy Water". What does the name "Heavy Water" refer to?

Mills: Technically  Heavy water is water containing a higher-than-normal proportion of the hydrogen isotope deuterium. The title refers to this water, which was a by-product of the hydro electric plan in Norway that was a key strategic goal for the Nazis...but symbolically the title is also a nod to the fact that water, and its weight, played a key role in how the story unfolded in WWII. It was a story about, and ended in, water.



Book of the Year!? We'll take it. Thanks Chris!

Book of the Year!? We'll take it. Thanks Chris!

Review: Rift Raiders from Kickstart Comics

Pulled from www.nerdstock.net/blog/

by Chris Hansbrough December 14, 2010

http://www.nerdstock.net/blog/2010/12/14/review-rift-raiders-from-kickstart-comics/

 

I’ve been a big fan of Mark Sable as a comic writer for a long time. From the unbelievable Grounded to working with DC on titles like his Cyborg miniseries, his work has never failed to impress me. So when I first saw pages of a book he was doing for a fledgling comic company called Kickstart Comics, which turned out to be Rift Raiders, I couldn’t help but want to read the whole thing. Would his re-teaming with his artistic collaborator from BOOM! Studios’ Unthinkable lead him to having another fantastic title? Click on through to find out.

Oh my Science this book is easily one of the most fun and energetic books I’ve read in a long time. I’ll go out and say it’s easily the best work Mark Sable has ever produced and is quite possibly, my book of the year. You heard me, BOOK … OF … THE … YEAR.

Mark really rises to the occasion by being the launching point for Kickstart Comics, and I have to say that if this is the quality of work I can expect from the company, then you might as well put me down for absolutely everything they will put out. I simply adored everything about the way this story was told. It manages to be a time travel story filled with jumps, yet you never get lost in the plot, which revolves around a group of orphans who each ended up with parts to a device that let them travel through time stealing historical objects for an old man known only as The Fence.

Each of the characters manages to have a distinct personality while fitting in to traditional character roles in surprising ways. You have the central character, Dodger, a smart and charismatic kid who fancies himself the greatest thief in the world. Accompanying him is the self professed greatest warrior of all time in Layla, who manages to be a straight up badass from start to finish, and Miles, the big haired black kid with a mind for science. Rounding out the cast of kids is Sikes, the bully of the orphanage run by unrepentant douchebag extraordinaire, Casimir.

The book manages to really juggle multiple themes and plots brilliantly over it’s 96 pages. It really is the perfect length for the book as it is a complete and dense read that you can finish in one sitting, and you probably will, but it also has natural break points which allow you to put the book down if you have to.

I’ve spent far too long talking about the writing though. I really have to stop and give credit to the amazing job that Julian Totino Tedesco and Juanmanuel Tumburus did in bringing this book to life. I first saw Julian’s work on the fantastic BOOM Studios book Unthinkable (Conveniently also written by Mark Sable) and while I was impressed then, the work here takes it to a whole new level that left me more than impressed. There’s solid storytelling as well as a kinetic energy and the most scientifically amazing splash page I’ve seen in a good long while.

So really, do I even have to put a grade at the end of this? Do yourself a favor and go buy it… like now! You won’t regret it. I give it the highest grade possible and really more than hope it’s not the end of this adventure.

Check out Hero Complex, now available on comixology.com!

Check out Hero Complex, now available on comixology.com!