Newsarama Interview on Eltingville, Beasts of Burden
I spoke to Chris Arrant at Newsarama about wrapping up The Eltingville Club, how my tendency towards clutter affects the scripts for Beasts of Burden and other topics that don't exactly shake the heavens of North American pop culture (of course, as you may well remember, I'm huge in the tiny Republic of Togoland). You can read the interview here if you wish to. Go, go on, it's not very long, I'll wait here until you come back.
FYI -- one of my answers didn't make it in so the interview carries a mistake, Eltingville wasn't created while Iw as working at Jim Hanley's Universe and wasn't based on my woeking in comic shops. Here's the stuff that was dropped, possibly in the middle of follow-ups and clarifications we were doing:
"The idea for Eltingville actually came out of a phone conversation I had with my then-publisher, Dan Vado. Dan was writing for DC Comics at the time and was getting a lot of crazy fan hate mail and death threats and bullshit because he killed off a character in a Justice League story. Some of the mail was incredibly vicious and all of it was incredibly stupid, I mean, we're talking about people losing their shit over fake, not-real, make-believe fictional characters, corporate intellectual property, concepts that never actually go away or "die" because if they really disappeared for good the company loses the rights, and they'll never let that happen. This is what some people write death threats and hate rants about, about nothing that really means anything in the long run because the characters always come back -- and then these ding-dongs go crazy that they changed their costume or skin color or something else that doesn't or shouldn't matter. Anyway, that's where Eltingville came from. Hatred of bad fandom, filled in with my own experiences as a fan, retailer and comic book making loser. And Twiki jokes."
Speaking of Beasts of Burden, which I was just doing with my manager -- who many of you may remember is a stuffed owl -- the first new issue in quite some time drops tomorrow at comic book shops that decided to order it. I guess it'll be available digitally this week or next week or this Spring for those who are shit out of luck, LCS-wise.
I'll be appearing at my local stomping grounds (I really do stomp there, stomping is such jolly good fun, eh,wot?), Comic Book Jones, signing copies of Hunters and Gatherers from 3 -6, possibly longer, possibly until closing, and then I may possibly be doing the CBJ podcast that evening and eating White Castle "hamburgers" and regretting everything I ever did up to that point. Hey, CBJ's got a %30 off all back issues sale going this month, there's always that. And free coffee. I don't drink that, it's bad for you, unlike White Castle "hamburgers".
See you, very likely wish I could be you.
Edited to add: I didn't realize cutting and pasting the interview segment meant there'd be a big dumb-looking white space around the text. I hope all of you left who still follow this blog will excuse my computer dumbness and the ugly, dumb-looking white space around the text. I'd try to fix it, or ask Sarah to help me, and my fucking OCD is screaming at me to re-type it so it will all look clean and be better and not look as dumb, but I want to eat dinner, instead. This is an ugly, nothing-looking POS blog, anyway, so, I should just pretend it's supposed to be some rough-looking crap that's taking a stance against slick BS. Bleagh.
FYI -- one of my answers didn't make it in so the interview carries a mistake, Eltingville wasn't created while Iw as working at Jim Hanley's Universe and wasn't based on my woeking in comic shops. Here's the stuff that was dropped, possibly in the middle of follow-ups and clarifications we were doing:
"The idea for Eltingville actually came out of a phone conversation I had with my then-publisher, Dan Vado. Dan was writing for DC Comics at the time and was getting a lot of crazy fan hate mail and death threats and bullshit because he killed off a character in a Justice League story. Some of the mail was incredibly vicious and all of it was incredibly stupid, I mean, we're talking about people losing their shit over fake, not-real, make-believe fictional characters, corporate intellectual property, concepts that never actually go away or "die" because if they really disappeared for good the company loses the rights, and they'll never let that happen. This is what some people write death threats and hate rants about, about nothing that really means anything in the long run because the characters always come back -- and then these ding-dongs go crazy that they changed their costume or skin color or something else that doesn't or shouldn't matter. Anyway, that's where Eltingville came from. Hatred of bad fandom, filled in with my own experiences as a fan, retailer and comic book making loser. And Twiki jokes."
Speaking of Beasts of Burden, which I was just doing with my manager -- who many of you may remember is a stuffed owl -- the first new issue in quite some time drops tomorrow at comic book shops that decided to order it. I guess it'll be available digitally this week or next week or this Spring for those who are shit out of luck, LCS-wise.
I'll be appearing at my local stomping grounds (I really do stomp there, stomping is such jolly good fun, eh,wot?), Comic Book Jones, signing copies of Hunters and Gatherers from 3 -6, possibly longer, possibly until closing, and then I may possibly be doing the CBJ podcast that evening and eating White Castle "hamburgers" and regretting everything I ever did up to that point. Hey, CBJ's got a %30 off all back issues sale going this month, there's always that. And free coffee. I don't drink that, it's bad for you, unlike White Castle "hamburgers".
See you, very likely wish I could be you.
Edited to add: I didn't realize cutting and pasting the interview segment meant there'd be a big dumb-looking white space around the text. I hope all of you left who still follow this blog will excuse my computer dumbness and the ugly, dumb-looking white space around the text. I'd try to fix it, or ask Sarah to help me, and my fucking OCD is screaming at me to re-type it so it will all look clean and be better and not look as dumb, but I want to eat dinner, instead. This is an ugly, nothing-looking POS blog, anyway, so, I should just pretend it's supposed to be some rough-looking crap that's taking a stance against slick BS. Bleagh.