Newsrama HERO COMPLEX Interview with Marc Bernardin

Newsrama HERO COMPLEX Interview with Marc Bernardin

Comics & Commercialism Get Send-up in HERO COMPLEX

Pulled from www.newsarama.com

By Chris Arrant posted: 14 September 2010 03:02 pm ET

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/hero-complex-freeman-bernardin-100814.html

By Chris Arrant
posted: 14 September 2010 03:02 pm ET

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In a world of super-heroes, super-zeroes and super-wannabes, even a hero can’t get it right all the time. In the upcoming graphic novel Hero Complex, a super-hero named Captain Supreme is down on his luck after some risky investments and needs a place to stay. Showing that these bad economical times can hit every segment of society, Captain Supreme is forced to move back in with his parents – and is forced into attending his high school reunion. And that’s where the real bad news begins.

Hero Complex comes by way of the enterprising writing team of Adam Freeman and Marc Bernardin. The duo have done several original series and graphic novels, as well as flirted with the superhero mainstream such as their current run on the DC/Wildstorm series The Authority. Joining the pair is Javi Fernandez, a relative newcomer to comics who illustrated a BD album in France titled Le Testamentd’un Excentrique. Bringing these all together is a new comic company with a long history in comics: Kickstart Comics. Although the comic publishing is new, Kickstart’s parent company has been a major production company for comic book movies such as Wanted and TV shows Wolverine & the X-Men and Painkiller Jane.

For more on this super-sized one-shot of a super-poor superhero, we talked with the writing pair that dreamed it up.

Newsarama: What can you tell us about Hero Complex, guys?

Adam Freeman: It will change the world. No, seriously.

Marc Bernardin: Well, it’s about a very complex hero, natch. See, we haven’t learned anything since our Monster Attack Network days -- it’s all right there in the title. Up next: Angry Billionaire Inventor.

Nrama: I’d buy that.

Freeman: Hero Complex is a really fun ride that works on a few different levels. For straight comic fans or folks new to comics it plays as a fun, adventure tale with a twist. For comic veterans it not only plays off of familiar men-in-tights tropes, but also pokes fun at the larger business of comics and commercialism.

Nrama: 2. I see from the gorgeous Amanda Conner cover that our hero is named Captain Supreme – what's he like?

Bernardin: He’s a Giant Effing Boy Scout. Seriously: He believes in a reality where men and women are judged by their deeds, not their words. He does the right thing even when no one’s watching. He won’t take a reward because, well, justice is his reward. He’s a white-bread hero in a pumpernickel world.

Freeman: And because of his ethics, he is branded a loser, gets no respect and is dirt poor because in reality, crime does pay. Stopping crime doesn’t. The other heroes in Constellation City have figure out how to play the game. They fight crime but also have publicists and endorsements...and cash.

Nrama: Not far behind Captain Supreme, it seems, is a sidekick – what's his name, and what's his story?

Freeman: Geniac is a non-powered guy that graduated from fanboy to sidekick.

Bernardin: He’s the sidekick in every sense of the word: He watches Captain Supreme’s back in battle, he handles all the accounting and pays the bills on their secret headquarters and studio apartment, and he buttresses his Hero’s ego when it needs buttressing.

Nrama: What are Captain Supreme’s powers?

Bernardin: Captain Supreme, as his white-breadness denotes, is very Superman-y as far as his powers go. Or, actually, more like The Tick: Take nigh-invulnerability and add flight.

Freeman: Throw in a little Captain Marvel too (Shazam, not the cosmic one). He is intentionally slightly generic as a throwback to the golden age when super heroes...just were.

Nrama: I never saw Superman have to move back in with the Kents; but in the promo material I see that Captain Supreme does. How does this happen?

Bernardin: Poor money management, horrible business sense and a total lack of image consultation.

Freeman: While other heroes are cashing on merchandise and licensing rights, Captain Supreme (with one of the worst names ever) is in it purely for the “do gooding.” Unfortunately that doesn’t help him hold a day job or pay the bills.

Nrama: Someone smarter than me said "you can't go home again"; so what is Captain Supreme up against when he's back home?

Freeman: The most annoying parents on Earth, friends that never left their small town, and his high school crush. They have branded their son/friend a loser because he has no job and no money. He takes his lumps because he knows to expose his secret identity would put them in jeopardy.

Bernardin: Essentially being a failure without being able to tell his parents why he’s a failure. See, unlike Clark and the Kents, Captain Supreme is still in the Heroic Closet. So a visit home is like a symphony of nagging from his well-meaning but ill-informed folks.

Nrama: For this you're working with artist Javi Fernandez, who is pretty new to the comics’ scene. What's it like working with him?

Freeman: The young kids today with their Internet and scanning and Tweeting. We have yet to meet him or even speak to him. All we know is that Jimmy found him, he is new, he is awesome, and made every single deadline. He worked like a machine and turned in some amazing work.

Bernardin: It’s a lot of “Hmmm...here’s another email with a dozen pages in it. Oh, okay, wow. So, this is how it’s gonna be. We’re just gonna be stunned by how easily this guy gets both the character humor and super-heroics. Fine.”

Freeman: Unfortunately, we probably never will work with him again because in the grand tradition of artists that start with us, they explode and leave us in the dust. We are the artist farm team.

Nrama: You get them ready for the big leagues.

How did the ideas that became Hero Complex come about?

Freeman: We are always trying to approach stories from new angles. You may think you know this world, or this theme, but how can we twist it – ala Monster Attack Network. Giant monsters aren’t new. The FEMA-like organization that deals with them is.

Bernardin: At the same time we both got invited to our 20th high school reunion and it occurred to us: going back to your high school reunion as a superhero would be the biggest “hometown boy makes good” story ever.

Freeman: But what if, for some poor guy, even that wasn’t enough. If Superman can’t go back and gloat, what does that say about the rest of us?

Nrama: Although you’re a comics team of many years now, you’re teaming with a new publisher on the scene: Kickstart. How did you two get involved with Kickstart Comics for your project?

Bernardin: We first got into bed with Kickstart about four years ago. It was a hot, sultry night in Cabo. A little Sammy Hagar, a lot of tequila. A crowded bed, sure, but still fun.

Nrama: Here we go...

Freeman: They are the production company behind Monster Attack Network set up at Disney with Dwayne Johnson and Andy Fickman attached. We have been developing several projects across all platforms with them so when they decided to get into publishing they came to us, we pitched, and they liked.

Nrama: They had a lot to like, with the track record you guys have been doing. In recent years you've put out a slew of new comics, from Monster Attack Network to Highwaymen and Genius. It seems most creators aim to just get on at Marvel or DC on work-for-hire – so why are you two pushing so many new ideas into the marketplace?

Freeman: Two factors, honestly. First off, with the exception of The Authority over at WildStorm, no one will give us those big characters to play with. We’ve done a few one-offs and anthology stuff but there is a very small group of writers that get to do the X-Men and Spidey and Batman. We are not in that club so we basically went the “indie film” route. Sony and Warner Brothers won’t let you helm their big budget explodo movies? Ok, we’ll make Reservoir Dogs and El Mariachi to get noticed. We would love to contribute to those cannons so hopefully the editors at DC and Marvel will take notice and give us a shot. Until then, we have no shortage of stories we want to tell.

Bernardin: We love the Big Honking Heroes that Marvel and DC have to play with, and we fully intend on sullying them appropriately. But it took us a while to get to comics -- and now that we’re here, we’re going to take every opportunity to tell the kinds of stories we’ve always dreamed of. Some of those will involve people in tights. Others won’t. But comics is the rarest of mass media in that there are so few barriers between what creators want the work to be and what readers hold in their hands. An editor or two, sometimes a publisher -- and that’s it. Try that in the movies, or TV, or even theater. Doesn’t happen. Comics is freedom, and we’d be fools to not take advantage of it.



Newsrama BAD GUYS interview with Phil Eisner!

Newsrama BAD GUYS interview with Phil Eisner!

"Event Horizon" Screenwriter Kickstarts Comics W/ BAD GUYS

Pulled from www.newsarama.com

By Chris Arrant, Newsarama Contributor
posted: 01 September 2010 10:55 am ET

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/bad-guys-kickstart-interview-100901.html

By Chris Arrant, Newsarama Contributor
posted: 01 September 2010 10:55 am ET

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When Earth has been invaded by alien forces and the world’s super-heroes were the first to be killed, who are the last line of defense for humanity? Super villains.

In the upcoming graphic novel Bad Guys, some of Earth’s biggest bad guys find themselves the only thing standing between aliens and the end of Earth as we know it. Written by screenwriter Phil Eisner (Event Horizon, Mutant Chronicles) and illustrated by Agustin Padilla (G.I. Joe: Origins, Oracle), Bad Guys is being released as an original graphic novel by upstart comics company Kickstart. Kickstart, who got its start in the film business and was behind the success of Wanted film, started a comics company with a unique vision to release twenty-four OGNS per year to both traditional comic stores as well as major retail chains such as Wal-Mart.

With Bad Guys set to be released on October 18th as a hardcover to comic stores and in November to retail chains, we talked with Phil Eisner, who wrote and created the story about this unique project and his induction into the comics world.

Newsarama: What can you tell us about the story of Bad Guys, Philip?

Phil Eisner: The quick version: Aliens from another dimension invade earth, kill all our superheroes, and start stealing all our water.  The only ones left who can stop them, are the super-villains.

The long version... the long version will be available in Oct. and retail for around 15 bucks.

Nrama: [laughs] Can you tell us how the aliens wipe out the entire superhero population? Villains have been trying that for years, unsuccessfully, in other books.

Eisner: With a really big gun.

Actually, there's more to it than that.

Come to think of it, there's not.  But it is a really, really big gun.

Nrama: Superior firepower. Okay, so the heroes are dead and buried – leaving the super-villains to stand up for their homeworld. Who are the standouts in the super-villains who are left behind?

Eisner: That's like asking which of your children is your favorite.

Which works for me, because I'm all about pitting children against one another, until only one remains, das Überkind.

I chose Femme Fatale as my narratrix because she's got a very human reason to be a villain. Fate does whatever she wants, when she wants... unless she loves someone.  Fate's jealous of Femme, and destroys anyone she loves, utterly and completely.  It's made her bitter and lonely, and makes her easy to empathize with.  

This contrasts sharply with Zen, the leader, who's the love child of Hannibal Lector and Kwai Chang Caine, and not humanized at all.  Which makes him tremendous fun to write.  The world is burning, and he's utterly indifferent.  

Melvin's another favorite.  He's a walking wall of muscle and as gentle as a lamb.  He's also killed more than 50 people.  But that wasn't him... at least, he doesn't think it was.  He's confused on the issue.

Nrama: What are these aliens like that Earth is up against?

Eisner: They're exactly like all the aliens on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but without the forehead prosthetics.

Nrama: How did the ideas behind Bad Guys come about, and develop into the comic that's coming out soon?

Eisner: I was thinking of writing an action movie.  Action movies are all about the villains.

And since they're the most interesting part -- your hero has to be "generic" enough for the audience to identify with, but the villain has no such constraints -- then how much more fun it would be to write an action film with no heroes?  Just broken, messed up, violent misanthropes who happen to be our only hope.

The superhero element came next. Comics, for the most part, present morality in terms of black and white. Specific stories are very nuanced, obviously, but the good guys are ultimately good and the bad guys are ultimately bad. And you need that kind of hyper-real setting to pull this off.  

Plus, in a real world story, I couldn't make them REALLY evil.  I couldn't have homicidal maniacs on the crew.  The comic book reality gives enough distance that we can enjoy them playing Wii while the world burns.

I also wanted to have fun with superhero stereotypes.  There's the speedy guy, the stretchy guy, the strong guy, the guy with the gear.  But they're twisted.

Nrama: For this,  you're working with artist Agustin Padilla, who has some extensive comic credits from Captain America to Star Trek comics. You've seen your movie scripts directed by some big names, but what's it like to see your words translated to pictures by an artist like Agustin?

Eisner: Awesome.

Pretty damn awesome.  There have been some panels that have absolutely stolen my breath away.   There's one -- our "brick" is called The Executioner, and his weapon is a headsman's axe -- and because we were really going for a PG13 vibe, there was a concern how to show the Executioner doing his thing.  Augustin did it in a silhouette that leaves everything to the imagination -- and is all the more disturbing for it.

Nrama: Bad Guys is being coordinated by the new comic publisher Kickstart as well as Kevin Spacey's film shingle, Trigger Street Productions. How'd you get involved with these two companies to do Bad Guys?

Eisner: So I come up with this idea for this superhero movie, called Bad Guys.   And I told it to Carter Swan, exec at Trigger Street.  And he said, "That would make an awesome comic book."  And I said, "But I want to write a movie."  

And he slapped me, and called me a whining little bitch, and threatened to write the comic himself if I didn't.  Then he called in Dana Brunetti.  You don't mess with a man who has Kaiser Soze on speed-dial.

So I said I'd write it, and he and Dana pitched it to Kickstart.  I loved what Kickstart had done with Wanted -- so the hardest thing for me, really, was feigning disinterest long enough to get paid to do something I'd have done for free.

I'm kidding.  I don't do anything for free.  I'm making Jason Netter pay me by the word for every email interview I do, which is why these answers are so very, very long.

Nrama: Then lets keep it going; You've worked mainly in movies – movies I've seen most of – but this is your first comic. Can you tell us about your comics interest, and what prompted you to want to do a comic?

Eisner: I've collected from 1985 to about 1998.  Had to quit, cold turkey.  I was up to about $250 week, and that was before the slipcased $100 editions of Sandman came out.  I culled the chaff from my collection, but still have about 8 boxes, sealed in plastic.  I have the original print runs of Dark Knight and Watchmen; the original appearance of The Elementals in Justice Machine.  Damn near all of Sandman, including no. 1.  A lot of the Marvel Epic imprint that Archie Goodwin edited -- I loved Alien Legion, and the craziness of Moonshadow and The Bozz Chronicles.

Now I just pick up the bound hardback volumes, 3-4 times a year.  They're expensive as hell, but it's very expensive for me to even pass by a comic book store, much less go inside.

So I've always wanted to do a comic.  I just never had an idea where it made sense to do the comic first.  Most of the time, I'm writing for hire on the movies, or I'm writing ideas on spec, and I've never heard of a spec market for comic scripts.  

Nrama: Before I let you go, I have to ask --- are you related to cartoonist Will Eisner?

Eisner: Regarding Will Eisner.  I wish.  When I was a kid, someone gave my dad a copy of The Spirit, because of the name.  It was the only comic book in our house until I was in middle school.  
 
I loved it.  I remember this one story, not about the Spirit at all, that followed an ordinary man through his day.  All he wants to do is sit quietly in his chair and read the paper.  Not gonna happen.  His kids run around, shouting.   His wife berates him for being such a weak loser.   His boss abuses him at work.  

On his train ride home, he stumbles upon the Spirit fighting some robbers in the caboose.  And he sees the engineer unconscious in the middle of the fight.

Which means that no one is in the engine to stop the train.

So this balding, small man -- of course he wears thick glasses -- goes to the front of the train -- has to climb on the outside of the coal car -- almost falls off  -- and pulls the brake at the last second, as the train barrels into the station.

The train crashes, but no one is killed.  And in the aftermath, Dolan asks The Spirit how he managed to slow the train from the caboose, and The Spirit confesses, he didn't.  He has no idea who pulled the brake.  

They find no one in the engine.

And we end with this sad, little man at home, sitting down in his chair.  Only this time, when his wife starts to nag and his children start to tear ass, he shouts "BE QUIET" at the top of his lungs.  

In the final panel, he's reading quietly, puffing on a pipe, with his children and wife leaning out from around a corner, staring at him with respect, their mouths zipped tight.

Still one of my favorite stories.



RIFT RAIDERS Interview with Mark Sable

RIFT RAIDERS Interview with Mark Sable

RIFT RAIDERS Kickstarts a Trip Through Space & Time

Pulled from www.comicvine.com

By Chris Arrant, Newsarama Contributor
posted: 31 August 2010 10:06 am ET

http://www.comicvine.com/mark-sable/26-42671/exclusive-mark-sable-talks-rift-raiders/92-569865/

What does it take to travel through space and time? A lot of work and preparation for starters, but don’t tell that to a trio of orphaned teens who find out their parents have been abducted by a time traveling madman. To find their parents wherever – and whenever they are, these three partner with a strange man who’ll provide them information if they steal rare antiquities for him.

That’s the story in the upcoming original graphic novel Rift Raiders, written by Mark Sable and illustrated by Julian Tedesco. Sable has been on a creative tear as of late, doing creator-owned work like Grounded, Fearless and Hazed while also doing work at both DC and Marvel. His last big project was the limited series Unthinkable from BOOM! Studios, and in this new project he’s reteaming with the artist of that, Tedesco, to tell this unique tale.

If the story isn’t unique enough yet, just look at the company who is putting it together. Longtime movie production company Kickstart has ventured into the world of comic pubishing, enlisting editors Jimmy Palmiotti & Larry Young to publish twenty-four graphic novels a year. No single issues, just straight-to-trade and they’re not only going to comic stores but also your local Wal-Mart, one of many retail chains the publisher has partnered with for a dedicated section.

For more on this, we talked with Rift Raiders creator and writer Mark Sable.

Newsarama: On your blog you described this as “Goonies meets Time Bandits”, but I see no Babe Ruth candy bar in sight. How would you describe the book, Mark?

Mark Sable: There’s no Baby Ruth and no Sloth, but the woman from Throw Mama From The Train and Joe Pantoliano make an appearance.

Seriously, I compare Rift Raiders to Goonies because of the tone, and Time Bandits because of the scale and scope of the adventure.   

Rift Raiders a fun, teen time-travel adventure story about kids who think they are orphans, but learn their parents are alive and scattered throughout time.  In order to rescue their parents, they have to strike a deal with a shady character who has them steal mystical artifacts in return for revealing their parents location.

Nrama: What would you say the big theme is here - what are you trying to show the reader?

Sable: There’s not really some heavy theme here, like messing with history is bad or anything like that.  I do think though, that Grounded and any of my work that deals with teens, it’s about parents needing to trust their kids enough to be honest with them.

Nrama: At the center of all this is a teen named Dodger. What’s he like?
 
Sable: When our story starts, Dodger is sort of your every-teen, with one exception.  His parents claim to be archeologist, but they never take him on his digs or share the finds they supposedly keep hidden in a secret vault.  So he’s dedicated his life to becoming the world’s greatest thief – just so he can uncover his family’s secrets.  Of course, he gets more than he bargained for when he finds they’re not just time treasure hunters but time travelers.

Nrama: I hear Dodger's not the only teen who has some misplaced parents - who
are the others?

Sable: There are three other “orphans” who Dodger finds after their parents are seemingly killed in accidents where no body was ever recovered.  

Myles is the only one with a work knowledge of history and the group’s moral compass.  If he’s the angel on Dodger’s shoulder, Sikes is the devil – a kid who could care less about finding his parents and who’s just in it for plundering the past.  

But my favorite is Layla...she’s a veteran time traveler with the ultimate combat training – having been taught by everyone from the Shaolin Monks to Wild Bill Hickock to Muhammad Ali.

Nrama: In the preview you gave us, someone grabbed Dodger's parents after the
time belt broke - who are they?

Sable: The gauntlets that grab the parents belong to the Casimir.  He’s the big bad of the book, and is also seeking mystical weapons from throughout time, but to reveal any more would involve major spoilers.

Nrama: How'd you come up with the premise of Rift Raiders, Mark?

Sable: It came from mashing up Time Bandits and Oliver Twist in my brain.  I love Time Bandits, but I did my definitive work on little people when I did my midget western, “They Shoot Ponies Don’t They” with Chew’s Rob Guillory and Tom Mauer in Popgun Vol. 1.

Plot wise, I borrowed a bit from Oliver Twist.  Instead of orphans being recruited to steal from Victorian Englishmen, they are recruited to steal by a Fagan-type character known as The Fence.  You never quite know who he’s working for – the kids, the Casimir, both or neither.

Nrama: For this, you're reteaming with your Unthinkable artist Julian Totino Tedesco. What was it about that project that united the two of you to continue on with this new project - a long one - with a new publisher like Kickstart?

Sable: I was so blown away by what Julian did with Unthinkable that I would have worked on him with anything.  When Kickstart asked for artist suggestions, Julian was my first and only choice.  People have compared his work to Joe The Barbarian’s Sean Murphy, and I think he’s a breakout artist.

What’s great is...although Unthinkable is my favorite published work, Julian’s art on Rift Raiders is on an entirely different level.  Without sacrificing the level of detail in Unthinkable, the action is just so much more dynamic in Rift Raiders, and the characters are even more expressive.  I purposely wrote Rift Raiders with the intention of giving Julian’s work more room to breathe, and as a result it’s a showcase book for him.

Nrama: How'd you hook up with Kickstart Comics to do this book?

Sable: Kickstart was and is a successful production company before they were a publisher, and had expressed interest in Hazed and Unthinkable.  I developed a great relationship with Samantha Olsson and Jason Netter, and we’ve been looking to work on something together for a long time.

Any time there’s a new publisher, especially one with Hollywood roots, there’s always skepticism.  But from both a business and creative perspective I couldn’t be happier with everything Kickstart has done.

A lot of their press has been focused on the fact that they have a distribution deal with Walmart – something almost every publisher has wanted to do but has been unable to.  That’s part of a larger approach of making books accessible to readers who might not have tried comics.  I’m beating a dead horse with this, but we need to grow comics’ readership if we want to see the medium thrive.

What I think is cooler, though, is that they haven’t forgotten direct market retailers.  At the direct market shops, they'll be offering hardcover versions of Rift Raiders instead of the softcover version for big box stores.

Nrama: You've done a lot of comics, but I believe this is your first original graphic novel - the others have been serialized first. Am I wrong? If not, what's it like writing for this longer uninterrupted format?

Sable: Hazed, my sorority satire from Image, was also an OGN, although it wasn’t originally conceived that way, which Rift Raiders was.  I grew up on serialized comics and love writing them, but I prefer doing an OGN, where I can tell a self-contained story with a beginning, middle and end without artificial breaks every 22 pages.

Nrama: You've said Rift Raiders is completely done on your end - so what else are you working on?

Sable: A lot...although I unfortunately have to be vague about some of it.  I have a Teen Titans special with the aforementioned Sean Murphy coming out this fall, and hopefully a Marvel story or two.  I’m doing another book with Kickstart that hasn’t been announced, and I just finished a screenplay for a very cool director.  

I think the two projects I’m most excited about are collaborations with Salgood Sam (Sea of Red), who I did a Comic Book Tattoo story with, and Paul Azaceta (Amazing Spider-Man), who I haven’t done a big project with since Grounded.  There’s no bigger compliment to me than when an artist wants to work with me again.



'Wanted' producer launches comicbook co.

'WANTED PRODUCER LAUNCHES COMICBOOK CO.

Pulled from www.variety.com

 

By MARC GRASER

After turning to comicbooks as a source for tentpoles, "Wanted" producer Jason Netter is getting into the publishing biz, launching Kickstart Comics.

The company, an imprint of film and TV production shingle Kickstart Entertainment, has already locked down a distribution pact with several major retailers, including Walmart, to produce at least 24 new books over a year. The initial plan is to release four books a month for six months starting this fall.

Naturally, the books are being eyed as potential adaptations as a TV show or film.

Comicbook vet Jimmy Palmiotti and Larry Young, owner of graphic novel-producer AIT/Planet Lar, will oversee and edit the initial run of Kickstart's books.

With marketing support from the likes of Walmart, Netter is trying to eliminate much of the nerdy stigma that still hovers over the comicbook biz. He believes the bigger stores will help get more of the titles into the hands of the masses "through a new, more expansive distribution than comicbooks have had in the past," Netter said, and not just those who visit smaller comicbook stores.

"This is a way to introduce comicbooks to a broader audience," he added.

The comicbook deal represents Walmart's latest retail expansion after spending considerable coin to remodel the electronics sections of its stores to hype its entertainment offerings and reach out to a type of consumer that may not have normally shopped at the retail giant.

At the same time, upping the exposure of Kickstart's books -- and other graphic novels -- would help turn the titles into more well-known properties when a film or TV version eventually hits the screen.

Studios have been eager to adapt comicbooks or graphic novels, believing that the books already boast a built-in fanbase along with their drawn out characters and developed plotlines.

Netter has several comicbook adaptations set up as films at studios around town, including a sequel to "Wanted" and "The Red Star" at Universal; "The Boys" and "Preacher" at Sony; "Monster Attack Network" at Disney; and "Robotech" and "Hench" at Warner Bros. "Crossed," set up with Trigger Street, also has Mike De Luca aboard as producer. The company's TV credits include "Painkiller Jane" for Syfy and the animated "Wolverine and the X-Men" for Nicktoons. It also produces the "Speed Racer" and "Voltron" toons for Nicktoons.

"Graphic novels are just great material," Netter said. "But tons of people aren't exposed to this material."

Netter is just the latest producer to become more active in deciding which books hit the market.

Sam Worthington, who recently formed his own shingle Full Clip Prods., with Michael and John Schwarz, last week announced the first series of titles to hit shelves through a publishing deal with comicbook publisher Radical Studios.

Those include "Patriots," which Worthington co-created with John Schwarz and Morgan O'Neill, about the sacrifice of one of Earth's continents in order to save the other six.

One of the first books Kickstart will launch is "Bad Guys," penned by Phil Eisner, described as a twist on the superhero genre that's told from the point of view of villains. "Rift Raiders," written by Mark Sable, is a time-travel adventure in the vein of "Goonies," while Adam Freeman and Marc Bernardin's "Hero Complex" centers on a superhero who has to move back home with his parents. "Witch," from Terry Matalas and Travis Fickett, is the story of a teenage girl who discovers that she is a witch.

Netter had already been experimenting with getting into the books biz, with "Random Acts of Violence" published by Image Comics in May. Palmiotti, behind issues of "Jonah Hex" and "Painkiller Jane," and Justin Gray ("Jonah Hex" and "Monolith") created the graphic novella about two comic creators whose ultimate horror character creation has gone very wrong. Last year, it published the graphic novel "Back to Brooklyn," created by Palmiotti and comicbook icon Garth Ennis ("The Boys" and "Preacher") through Image Comics.

"The financial model (of publishing comicbooks) isn't great," Netter admitted, with many books lucky to sell around 5,000 copies. The real money comes when they're turned into movies, TV shows and videogames. "Breaking even isn't even in the cards with the initial release. You definitely have to love it." 

MTV: ADAPT THIS

MTV: ADAPT THIS

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Comic book creators Ezra and Todd have a critical and commercial hit on their hands in the form of "Slasherman," their first creator-owned horror series. The two embark on a signing tour to promote the book, launching a contest for readers to create their very own "Slasherman" scene.

Over the course of their trip, it becomes increasingly clear that "Slasherman" has inspired a wave of violence, one that reaches all the way to Ezra and Todd's doorsteps.

WHY IT WORKS: From start to finish, Palmiotti and Gray's "Random Acts of Violence" is a brilliantly crafted tale of horror that leaves the reader feeling thoroughly disturbed — exactly the way a horror story should. With compelling characters, realistic dialogue, shocking twists and copious amounts of gore, "Random Acts" is a great ride for any horror fan. While some have argued that the film industry is over-saturated with comic book adaptations at the moment, "Random Acts" is an interesting case in that it deals with the dangers of fiction and what these stories can inspire in their readers. For my money, "Random Acts" seems like an interesting work to put in the public conversation at this point in time.

WHY IT DOESN'T: Mainstream moviegoers have had some difficulty embracing R-rated comic book fare. "Watchmen," though mostly well-received, performed poorly at the box office, just as "Kick-Ass" failed to achieve the type of success many expected it to. "Random Acts" could meet a similar fate, if only because the hard-R nature of this story absolutely cannot be toned down without completely gutting the message. That said, "Wanted" maintained an R-rating and managed to do tremendously well at the box office. Given that, "Random Acts" could go in either direction.

HOW TO DO IT: Because it wouldn't require splashy special effects or even big name actors, a "Random Acts" adaptation would work best as a low-budget horror film along the lines of "Saw." Put the project in the hands of an up-and-coming filmmaker (Jason Eisener of "Hobo With a Shotgun" comes to mind) and "Random Acts" could find itself an instant favorite amongst horror fans — something that's more than fitting given the Slasherman character's own cult status.

FINAL WORD: There's more than enough blood, guts and gore in "Random Acts of Violence" to excite any hardcore horror fan, but at its core, this is a story about hijacking creations and twisting them into your own vision. "Random Acts" is filled with interesting, thoughtful ideas that many readers would benefit from pondering — and it certainly doesn't hurt that these ideas come wrapped in a blood-soaked package.