The Beat |
- A Year of Free Comics: Young readers have a mystery to solve in ADAMSVILLE
- RADIANT BLACK superhero universe expands with SUPERMASSIVE crossover one-shot and new ongoing series
- PREVIEW: They will or they won’t in Sitterson & Dougherty’s SAVAGE HEARTS #5
- INTERVIEW: Juan Ponce talks THIRTY-THREE and escaping from one’s past
- PREVIEW: Check out pages from NARCO and the expanded edition of PLASTIC from 12-Gauge Comics
- FANDOM FLAMES: When fanon overtakes canon to fandom’s detriment
| A Year of Free Comics: Young readers have a mystery to solve in ADAMSVILLE Posted: 15 Nov 2021 03:00 PM PST If you've read my entries for our Free Comics series, it's painfully obvious that I love horror and mystery comics. When I stumbled upon Adamsville on Webtoons, I was excited to find a webcomic in the spirit of my style that I can share with my kids. Created by Michael Regina, the all-ages series is about Chloe and Todd, two middle schoolers who team up to solve a series of supernatural mysteries in their hometown. As they dig deeper, they uncover a massive conspiracy that will affect them, their families, and everything they have ever known forever. The colorful, appealing art is stylistically in line with a book geared toward young readers. The characters are relatable, and the dialogue is true to the middle school age of the speakers, making it easier for youngsters to read and sympathize with the two friends tasked with chasing down the creatures and mysteries in their town. Adamsville can be read for free on Webtoons. The complete series contains 85 episodes that both you and your younger reading buddies can enjoy. Click here to begin.
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| RADIANT BLACK superhero universe expands with SUPERMASSIVE crossover one-shot and new ongoing series Posted: 15 Nov 2021 01:30 PM PST Earlier this year, Radiant Black, a new ongoing series from Kyle Higgins, Marcelo Costa, Becca Carey, and Michael Busuttil, debuted from Image Comics. Described as "Power Rangers meets Invincible" the series follows a young millennial who is granted cosmic powers. on Friday, courtesy of an io9 exclusive, it was announced that the world of Radiant Black will be expanding as a Supermassive crossover one-shot this February will also launch a new Rogue Sun ongoing series. For the Supermassive one-shot Higgins will be joined by writers Ryan Parrott and Mat Groom as well as artist Francesco Manna and colorist Igor Monti.
Groom added:
Artist Manna likewise said:
The Supermassive crossover will lead into a Rogue Sun ongong series from Parrott (Mighty Morphin, Power Rangers, Dead Day) and artists Abel (Harley Quinn, Crimes of Passion) & Chris O'Halloran. Rogue Sun follows rebellious teenager Dylan Siegel who inherits the titular supehero mantle from his estranged father. Here’s how the publisher described the series:
The one-shot will also add Inferno Girl Red, a character created by Groom and artist Erica D’Urso whose debut was successfully funded via Kickstarter earlier this year, to the Radiant Black universe. The Supermassive one-shot will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, February 2. Check out a breakdown of the available covers below.
Rogue Sun #1 will be available in comic book shops on Wednesday, February 16. Check out the cover gallery and interior art by Abel below.
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| PREVIEW: They will or they won’t in Sitterson & Dougherty’s SAVAGE HEARTS #5 Posted: 15 Nov 2021 11:30 AM PST This week Dark Horse Comics will release Savage Hearts #5, the final issue of the miniseries from writer Aubrey Sitterson, artist Jed Dougherty, colorist Lovern Kindzierski, and letterer Taylor Esposito. Today The Beat has an exclusive preview of the story’s concluding chapter, which finally answers the primary question of the series: will they or won’t they?
Here’s how Dark Horse describes Savage Hearts #5:
Savage Hearts is the latest Dark Horse project from writer Aubrey Sitterson. Last month saw the conclusion of The Worst Dudes, which Sitterson created with artist Tony Gregori, Kindzierski, and Esposito; a collected edition of that series is due out in February 2022. October also debuted the first issue of No One Left to Fight II, the sequel to Sitterson’s hit series with Fico Ossio, Raciel Avila, and Esposito. As to the wide variety of projects Sitterson has worked on for Dark Horse, the writer expressed his goals in an interview with The Beat earlier this year:
Check out the exclusive four-page preview of Savage Hearts #5 below. The concluding issue of the series is due out in print and digitally this Wednesday, November 17th. A collected edition of the full series is scheduled for release in March 2022.
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| INTERVIEW: Juan Ponce talks THIRTY-THREE and escaping from one’s past Posted: 15 Nov 2021 07:30 AM PST
Juan Ponce is a writer on the rise. In the years since his first comic work was released, Ponce has produced short stories and specials with a number of artists, including Matthew Galman, Craig Cermak, Yasmín Flores Montañez, and more, both in the self-published space and through publishers like Action Lab. Later this year Ponce will make his Marvel Comics debut with a story in the Marvel’s Voices: Comunidades one-shot spotlighting Latinx creators and characters. Before that arrives, though, Ponce is working on crowdfunding a new creator-owned project, as Thirty-Three is currently being funded via Kickstarter. The graphic novel, which the campaign page says collects issues 1-5 of a 10-part series, finds Ponce teamed with an all-star cadre of fellow creators, including artists Gavin Guidry and Marco Finnegan, colorists Michael Fisher and Ellie Wright, letterers Gabriela Downie and Ariana Maher, editor Brittany Matter, and logo designer Taylor Esposito. The project, featured in The Beat‘s Crowdfunding Round-Up last month, follows Andrew West, aka the former assassin Thirty-Three, now twenty-five years out of the business, who finds himself and his family the targets of figures from his former live. As the family is forced to go on the run, Andrew must confront his past literally and figuratively. The Beat chatted with Ponce about his latest project, including how the creative team for Thirty-Three came together, and how working on his first longer project compares to his previous shorter-form work. Joe Grunenwald: How did you go about developing Thirty-Three? How did the creative team for the book come together? What do they each bring to the project? Juan Ponce: Thirty-Three started out as a five-issue mini-series. I wanted a mad comedy with some high stakes and relatable characters, specifically a dad. At that time I didn't have a daughter, but I was year into my marriage and into my really boring office job. Essentially, I wanted a hero that I could relate to. Thirty-Three was a much simpler story early into its development. But everything changed shortly after Marco Finnegan, who had just wrapped up Crossroad Blues for Image Comics, began working on issue one. Seeing his pages made the idea and characters more complex. Everything snowballed from there and Thirty-Three became a two trade story.  I was really lucky Marco said yes to me back in 2018; I was barely getting my voice out there at the time. Luckily he loved this mad story of family and redemption. Not too long after hiring Marco I contacted Ellie Wright, she too was eager to jump on board. Ellie added so much to Marco's vision. Their pages felt noir, but somehow also madly kinetic and cool. Their work is truly a spectacle. Ariana Maher heard my pitch and also said yes, we had just wrapped up work on a lovely short called A Moment in Time. She added so much as well. Her sound effects were perfect for Marco's style. Can't say thank you enough everyone from that first issue, they took a chance on me. Marco and the rest of the team had to bow out after issue one. Everyone’s schedules were pretty crazy at the time, and we all left on good terms. I actually worked with Ariana recently on Marvel's Voices: Comunidades and she's the one who recommended Thirty-Three‘s amazing letterer and cover artist, Gabriela Downie. The second team came in running and made the book their own. Gavin Guidry loved issue one and shortly after the release of [his Action Lab series] Going to the Chapel began work on issue two. About six pages into seeing his awesome style I began to shift elements of the story, [and] Thirty-Three quickly became ours–our story. Gavin made so many great choices and always knew what I was thinking, our voices just worked well together. With Gavin I pushed the madness further and really leaned into crazy comic book action, his vision would not accept anything less.
Michael Fisher and Gavin are close friends and they worked hand-in-hand on this. Michael is making his debut here and you’re going to hear his name a lot after this. His lighting work is unbelievable. He also adds to the madness with easter eggs scattered throughout the book. Gabriela Downie made this book sing; much like Michael she added brilliant details that I couldn't imagine. And much like Gavin, she was all about the story being as bonkers and heart-driven as possible. Couldn’t ask for a better team. Grunenwald: Were there any stories, in comics or otherwise, that inspired you while you were working on writing the book? Ponce: [Robert] Kirkman's dialogue in Walking Dead rang in my head throughout this series. That comic has such an organic voice, the characters feel real, as do their decisions. That's what I wanted for this book. Sure there's hahas here, but the emotion had to feel grounded. Another book that was top of mind was [Joshua] Williamson's Birthright. He handled the family dynamic brilliantly. Lastly there was Tom King's Vision which balanced dark humor, family, and identity very well. Grunenwald: Andrew, the book's lead character, is a former assassin whose past comes back to haunt him. Do you think a person can ever truly walk away from their past? Ponce: We can learn, grow, and recover from our past. But the past is a part of us. We're not the same people we were five years ago, that said, we were molded by our experiences five years ago. It's important to look back on who we were, good or bad. Whether we like it or not, the past is a part of us.
Grunenwald: This is your first longer project. How did your experience working on Thirty-Three compare to the other short comics you've written? Ponce: It was a blast. I love writing shorts, because I get to hit the reader in the gut pretty quickly. With a longer form story I get to do that more meticulously and more often. Both long form and short form comics are a three-act-structure. With Thirty-Three I got more of a chance to explore act two and that's awesome. Grunenwald: The campaign page indicates this is the first half of the story. How far along into development of the second part are you? Ponce: The next trade is mapped out and the major beats are also laid out. I know chapter 6/ issue 6 really well and I've known how this story would end since the beginning. Well aside from one character's fate. Things might change, as they always do when I see Gavin's amazing art, but the next arc is pretty well mapped out.
Grunenwald: What are you excited for readers to see when they check out Thirty-Three? Ponce: The character study in the book. I have a pretty big cast here and a lot of them have their moment in the spotlight. Those quiet moments with characters were so fun to write. I hope the reader feels something when they read them. The Kickstarter campaign to fund Thirty-Three runs until this Friday, November 19th, at 4:42 PM Eastern. The post INTERVIEW: Juan Ponce talks THIRTY-THREE and escaping from one’s past appeared first on The Beat. |
| PREVIEW: Check out pages from NARCO and the expanded edition of PLASTIC from 12-Gauge Comics Posted: 15 Nov 2021 07:00 AM PST 12-Gauge Comics, the studio behind titles like The Ride, Matador, and Vinyl, is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to fund production of a pair of new projects. Narco is a new crime thriller graphic novel from writer Doug Wagner, artist Daniel Hillyard, colorist Dave Stewart, and letterer Ed Dukeshire. Along with Narco, the Kickstarter campaign is also to fund a deluxe edition hardcover of Plastic, the series from Wagner, Hillyard, Dukeshire, and colorist Laura Martin originally published by Image Comics, which will include a new six-page story by the original creative team. Today The Beat is pleased to present both a four-page preview of Narco and an exclusive look at a pair of new pages from Plastic.  Here’s how 12-Gauge describes Narco:
 Plastic follows Edwyn, a former serial killer forced back into his old life after his girlfriend, a sex doll he calls Virginia, is kidnapped. Stolen? Can a sex doll be kidnapped? I’m not clear on the logistics of that. Either way, it’s a weird situation.
Talking to The Beat about revisiting Plastic, writer Wagner described how the new pages enhance the originally-published story:
Check out the four-page preview of Narco, as well as the exclusive preview of lineart for two of the new pages from Plastic, below. The Kickstarter campaign to fund production of both books runs until Thursday, November 18th, at 4:12 PM Eastern.
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| FANDOM FLAMES: When fanon overtakes canon to fandom’s detriment Posted: 14 Nov 2021 09:00 AM PST As you may have gathered from almost an entire year of columns about fandom from yours truly, I am, in fact, in fandom. Quite a few fandoms, actually. I am a fandom creator, with many, many years of graphics making, fanfic writing, and shitposting behind me. Right now, I'm in the middle of writing two fics, partly as a part of a personal, truncated NaNoWriMo challenge, where I write 1000 words a day, alternating between an original project and a beast of a fanfic. I'm also trying to write a little bit of another longer fic every day after I finish my "vegetables," or 1000 words. But I'm running up against a block as I write these two fics: fanon as gospel, more so than canon. In most of my favorite fandoms, I adore the characters who go from despising each other to either falling for each other or becoming fast friends. Usually, one character is an antagonist, if not an out-and-out villain, and the other one is a protagonist. This isn't a bad thing, so long as you acknowledge that even the purest of protagonists isn't perfect. However, in fanon, which is when fans declare their points of view on characters and storylines more accurate than canon, things can quickly grow ugly. Here's a point of contention for me: fanon will never surpass canon when it comes to what is true because while you can transform a work more to your tastes, it's to your tastes, not to everyone in the fandom's tastes. Fanon is a diverse thing; everyone has a different point of view, but when powerful fans or Big Name Fans (BNF) popularize a particular perspective on say, a ship, even if it goes against most of canon, that fanon can be treated as gospel, and anyone who dares to hew closer to canon can get ignored, or worse, harshly criticized for not obeying, for lack of a better word, the given "rules" of a ship. Back to my fics: I'm playing with the characters as they are on the shows themselves. One half of the pairing is usually at the other's throat most of the time, only relenting when they themselves get humbled. In fandom's perspective, however, one of these ships is extremely grounded in the meet-cute trope and extremely popular in its fandom, while the other one has only a small but vocal segment of its fandom following it. I find myself doubting my own writing and characterization of these characters throughout my writing this month, and seeing as how I'm not letting myself revise along the way—not until December, at least—I find myself second-guessing myself after the word count each day is reached. A popular critique of a lot of fanfics, for better or worse, is the accusation of "OOC," that is, Out-of-Character writing. It's even a tag some writers put upfront on their fics on AO3, as a warning that you might not get what you want if you read the fic in question, whether the fic is actually OOC or not. Fanon can get weird when it comes to actual canon, too, with fans usually dumping canon in favor of fanon. This happens a lot with big fandoms: see Supernatural, Sherlock, and even the MCU. Fans have every right to criticize canon, and it can be fun to envision a "What if" scenario with canon, but fanon is about as sacred as canon is, which is to say, neither one possesses pure goodness. Rather, I'd argue, fanon and canon should merely co-exist, with fans not warring over which one is more valid, but rather just agreeing that fanon is fun and canon is the basis for that fun. If a fic or meta writer is directed more towards a canonical interpretation, that's okay, and if a fic or meta writer is directed more towards a fanon interpretation, that's also okay. Where we get into trouble is the legalistic demand that a fan creator choose one or the other when crafting their works. I could write a whole column on legalism in fandom, and in the wider Internet, but I'll just leave you with this: the author wrote their story that way for a reason, particular to them. That holds true whether the author in question is writing literary fiction, speculative fiction, or fanfiction. It may not be for you, and that's okay. Fandom is not a uniform space, and it shouldn't be—that's part of the fun! The post FANDOM FLAMES: When fanon overtakes canon to fandom's detriment appeared first on The Beat. |
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