MattBrady
11-27-2002, 09:56 AM
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/wildstorm07_copy.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/wildstorm07_copy_t.jpg" width="175" height="269" align="right" alt="The Resistance #7 cover by Chrisopher Shy" border="0"></a>by Alex Segura Jr.
The future’s a pretty crappy place.
At least according to Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. The writers, along with penciler Juan Santacruz are painting a bleak picture for readers with The Resistance, an ongoing title starring a band of misfits battling a corrupt government in the not-so-distant future.
Newsarama sat down with Palmiotti to get the basics on the characters, their desperate future and the trouble getting sci-fi into readers’ hands in a super hero market.
The main conflict in the book lies between the Strayz, a group of street urchins struggling to survive and the GCC, the corrupt police force gunning to take them down.
“The Strayz are street level kids, rejects and discarded members of society,” Palmiotti explains. “They are the poor huddled masses that built America and are now viewed as parasites, willing to do most anything to survive. The GCC is a dictatorship system of government that rose to power amid the chaos that followed the great disaster. This disaster was a terrorist related incident where an anti-botanical agent was released and quickly spread across the globe destroying a large percentage of plant life. The GCC hunts, captures and in most cases kills its own citizens with a 98% approval rating.”
The cast of characters is a mixed bunch, according to Palmiotti.
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/Res_04_12_col.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/Res_04_12_col_t.jpg" width="175" height="261" align="left" alt="The Resistance #4, page 12" border="0"></a> “Surge Ortiz is the leader, a driven and dedicated man of action who follows his own strict rules to survive,” Palmiotti said. “Version Mary is a Zen party girl that carries the genetic code to give birth to the Masi Lama, a spiritual leader destined to bring light to a world of darkness. Tommy Lyne is a chain-smoking, suicidal, gun-loving psychopath whose idea of recreation is to play Russian Roulette while drunk off his ass. Tommy is the character who’s a human time bomb. Brian Sturm is just a kid that fell out of the frying pan into a world he wanted nothing to do with and now can't escape from. In a sense, he is the character that brings the reader along for the ride.”
The experience of writing The Resistance has been one of the better collaborations for Palmiotti because of co-writer Gray.
“Working with Justin has been the easiest collaboration I have had with another creator, other than Amanda Conner, to date,” Palmiotti notes. “Justin is an intelligent hard working, well-researched writer who, given the right opportunities, will become one of the top guys in the field. The Resistance wouldn’t exist without Justin. This was basically his idea, which we both managed to flush out. The great thing about working together is that there is no clash of egos whatsoever. We are both full of a million ideas and the only thing that stands in our way are the restrictions of time. I know that sounds silly, but all you have to do is take a look at our notebooks and you will understand. There are a ton of projects coming from the both of us; we just have to find the right homes for them.”
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/Res_04_13_col.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/Res_04_13_col_t.jpg" width="175" height="261" align="right" alt="The Resistance #4, page 13" border="0"></a>Though new to the United States comic market, penciller Juan Santacruz’s art style instantly drew Palmiotti’s attention.
“Before The Resistance? In the States, nothing I know of,” Palmiotti said when asked where else readers could spot Santacruz’s art. “In Spain, I think Juan self published a book and has done various work here and there. This is really the first chance people have seen his work on a large scale. When Justin and I were introduced to Juan's work, we immediately thought The Resistance was a perfect tool to show off how wonderfully talented both Juan and his inker Francis were. Two issues in and these guys have been offered work from most every company in the business. Good thing we have them both chained up in a warehouse basement.”
The book is plotted through the eighth issue, Palmiotti said, and he expects big changes to both the characters and the creative team in the coming months.
“We have until issue 8 mapped out,” Palmiotti said. “After that we are going to try something different with the series and the creative team. I can’t say what yet, but I think the readers will find it interesting. What I can tell you are that issue #7 and #8 deal with Version Mary and her past catching up with her.”
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/Res_04_16_17_col.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/Res_04_16_17_col_t.jpg" width="250" height="193" align="left" alt="The Resistance #4, page 16-17" border="0"></a>Palmiotti is quick to point out which of the characters he can relate to and enjoy writing most. “Well, the easiest character to write is Tommy,” Palmiotti noted. “Basically because he is living on the edge and his motivations are clear to me. He likes booze; women and guns. I understand that, except all the guns I have are model guns. For my own personal protection, I have a baseball bat which we all know never runs out of bullets.”
“Probably next up would be Brian,” Palmiotti continued. “Just because he is the outsider looking in. he is experiencing things for the first time and giving everyone a bit of attitude to boot. Both these characters are an easy write.”
Once the idea for The Resistance came together, the rest fell into place quickly and easily, according to Palmiotti. “We had an idea. Bob Harras asked us to pitch it, and it sold. Deeper than that, we feel it’s a warning where we happen to see the future of mankind heading, maybe not in the visual sense, but with all the terrorist activity and the biological warfare being waved around and peoples current total disregard for the environment. Our whole society is becoming a disposable wasteland. It’s our way of saying ‘Watch out folks, this is where the yellow brick road is heading’, and it’s not pretty.”
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/resishfive01_copy.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/resishfive01_copy_t.jpg" width="165" height="254" align="left" alt="The Resistance #5, page 1" border="0"></a>Aside from not being your standard capes and tights epic, Palmiotti points out that they main thing The Resistance has to offer is variety.
“It comes down to choices and variety,” Palmiotti said. “You could eat meatballs every night but eventually you might want some sushi. The market is dominated by super heroes, in the event that you're looking for something different, perhaps a break from the same titles you've been reading then The Resistance is currently available. Really, you can’t name 5 other sci-fi titles out there right now, and to us, it’s depressing as hell. Why has it come down to the sad fact that there are so many of the same books out there, what happened to variety? Seems to me that People want to read the same old superheroes over and over. It's depressing really. With unlimited boundaries to our imaginations, we, as a group of consumers, all seem to be buying the same books over and over. And I think that's sad. What we need to do is celebrate diversity in our field and show the rest of the world we are capable of more than the same old superhero concepts since 1938. The whole comic industry needs a major re-boot.”
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/resishfive03_copy.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/resishfive03_copy_t.jpg" width="165" height="254" align="right" alt="The Resistance #5, page 3" border="0"></a>With the slew of new Wildstorm titles coming out, it might be hard for a new title like The Resistance to survive. But Palmiotti is optimistic that the good buzz surrounding the title will keep it afloat.
“There is only so much money the average reader can spend on monthly titles,” Palmiotti said. “So we never expected big numbers. For that and other obvious reasons, the exposure for The Resistance has been limited. For those that pick the book up, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. So much so that people outside of the industry have approached us about the property looking to develop it. We see this with 21 Down as well, where non-comic readers and other industries are embracing the titles. These are minds that understand that they need more variety in their lives and also look beyond the restrictions of publishing just to have a top seller. People who understand that tastes change and are looking for the next wave to hook on to. Thank God for Jim Lee and Wildstorm. They are willing to take chances and understand that there needs to be chances taken.
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/resishfive04_copy.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/resishfive04_copy_t.jpg" width="165" height="254" align="left" alt="The Resistance #5, page 4" border="0"></a> “Sales could be better, and everyone involved watches each month's numbers come in, and unfortunately, it's less and less. The books are selling out, but the retailers have a responsibility to push and re-order the titles as well. Sales may dictate the amount of issues the book will run, but we look at it this way: Even if we only got 6 issues out, it's a win for us. We are hoping word of mouth and the hard work we all have done with interviews, previews, the mini site ondccomics.com, Justin and I visiting retailer boards and posting replies on Wildstorm's message boards, etc., will help sales, but again, its hard when most fans are perfectly happy not taking a risk on new product. Getting someone to try something new is a risk to them, and realistically, retailers have to push over 250 titles a month. I think the older a reader gets, the more he realizes there is more to life to explore, in every way.
“Both Justin and I deal in reality and we are writing the stories in arcs. We would like to think sales might go up, but if they don't, we do not want the loyal readers to have to pay for it with unfinished tales. Only time will tell. Please go out and buy two copies and turn a friend on to it!”
There’ll be plenty of changes in store for the characters in the coming months. Not to mention lost appendages. “Personal growth, lost limbs, broken hearts, new loves, moral challenges and lots and lots of explosions,” Palmiotti said. “The usual in a world gone mad.”
In addition to the pages above penciled by Santacruz, the computer-generated pages are by Christopher Shy. The sequential pages of issue #5 by Shy outline the accident that establishes the world in which The Resistance takes place.
The future’s a pretty crappy place.
At least according to Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. The writers, along with penciler Juan Santacruz are painting a bleak picture for readers with The Resistance, an ongoing title starring a band of misfits battling a corrupt government in the not-so-distant future.
Newsarama sat down with Palmiotti to get the basics on the characters, their desperate future and the trouble getting sci-fi into readers’ hands in a super hero market.
The main conflict in the book lies between the Strayz, a group of street urchins struggling to survive and the GCC, the corrupt police force gunning to take them down.
“The Strayz are street level kids, rejects and discarded members of society,” Palmiotti explains. “They are the poor huddled masses that built America and are now viewed as parasites, willing to do most anything to survive. The GCC is a dictatorship system of government that rose to power amid the chaos that followed the great disaster. This disaster was a terrorist related incident where an anti-botanical agent was released and quickly spread across the globe destroying a large percentage of plant life. The GCC hunts, captures and in most cases kills its own citizens with a 98% approval rating.”
The cast of characters is a mixed bunch, according to Palmiotti.
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/Res_04_12_col.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/Res_04_12_col_t.jpg" width="175" height="261" align="left" alt="The Resistance #4, page 12" border="0"></a> “Surge Ortiz is the leader, a driven and dedicated man of action who follows his own strict rules to survive,” Palmiotti said. “Version Mary is a Zen party girl that carries the genetic code to give birth to the Masi Lama, a spiritual leader destined to bring light to a world of darkness. Tommy Lyne is a chain-smoking, suicidal, gun-loving psychopath whose idea of recreation is to play Russian Roulette while drunk off his ass. Tommy is the character who’s a human time bomb. Brian Sturm is just a kid that fell out of the frying pan into a world he wanted nothing to do with and now can't escape from. In a sense, he is the character that brings the reader along for the ride.”
The experience of writing The Resistance has been one of the better collaborations for Palmiotti because of co-writer Gray.
“Working with Justin has been the easiest collaboration I have had with another creator, other than Amanda Conner, to date,” Palmiotti notes. “Justin is an intelligent hard working, well-researched writer who, given the right opportunities, will become one of the top guys in the field. The Resistance wouldn’t exist without Justin. This was basically his idea, which we both managed to flush out. The great thing about working together is that there is no clash of egos whatsoever. We are both full of a million ideas and the only thing that stands in our way are the restrictions of time. I know that sounds silly, but all you have to do is take a look at our notebooks and you will understand. There are a ton of projects coming from the both of us; we just have to find the right homes for them.”
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/Res_04_13_col.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/Res_04_13_col_t.jpg" width="175" height="261" align="right" alt="The Resistance #4, page 13" border="0"></a>Though new to the United States comic market, penciller Juan Santacruz’s art style instantly drew Palmiotti’s attention.
“Before The Resistance? In the States, nothing I know of,” Palmiotti said when asked where else readers could spot Santacruz’s art. “In Spain, I think Juan self published a book and has done various work here and there. This is really the first chance people have seen his work on a large scale. When Justin and I were introduced to Juan's work, we immediately thought The Resistance was a perfect tool to show off how wonderfully talented both Juan and his inker Francis were. Two issues in and these guys have been offered work from most every company in the business. Good thing we have them both chained up in a warehouse basement.”
The book is plotted through the eighth issue, Palmiotti said, and he expects big changes to both the characters and the creative team in the coming months.
“We have until issue 8 mapped out,” Palmiotti said. “After that we are going to try something different with the series and the creative team. I can’t say what yet, but I think the readers will find it interesting. What I can tell you are that issue #7 and #8 deal with Version Mary and her past catching up with her.”
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/Res_04_16_17_col.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/Res_04_16_17_col_t.jpg" width="250" height="193" align="left" alt="The Resistance #4, page 16-17" border="0"></a>Palmiotti is quick to point out which of the characters he can relate to and enjoy writing most. “Well, the easiest character to write is Tommy,” Palmiotti noted. “Basically because he is living on the edge and his motivations are clear to me. He likes booze; women and guns. I understand that, except all the guns I have are model guns. For my own personal protection, I have a baseball bat which we all know never runs out of bullets.”
“Probably next up would be Brian,” Palmiotti continued. “Just because he is the outsider looking in. he is experiencing things for the first time and giving everyone a bit of attitude to boot. Both these characters are an easy write.”
Once the idea for The Resistance came together, the rest fell into place quickly and easily, according to Palmiotti. “We had an idea. Bob Harras asked us to pitch it, and it sold. Deeper than that, we feel it’s a warning where we happen to see the future of mankind heading, maybe not in the visual sense, but with all the terrorist activity and the biological warfare being waved around and peoples current total disregard for the environment. Our whole society is becoming a disposable wasteland. It’s our way of saying ‘Watch out folks, this is where the yellow brick road is heading’, and it’s not pretty.”
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/resishfive01_copy.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/resishfive01_copy_t.jpg" width="165" height="254" align="left" alt="The Resistance #5, page 1" border="0"></a>Aside from not being your standard capes and tights epic, Palmiotti points out that they main thing The Resistance has to offer is variety.
“It comes down to choices and variety,” Palmiotti said. “You could eat meatballs every night but eventually you might want some sushi. The market is dominated by super heroes, in the event that you're looking for something different, perhaps a break from the same titles you've been reading then The Resistance is currently available. Really, you can’t name 5 other sci-fi titles out there right now, and to us, it’s depressing as hell. Why has it come down to the sad fact that there are so many of the same books out there, what happened to variety? Seems to me that People want to read the same old superheroes over and over. It's depressing really. With unlimited boundaries to our imaginations, we, as a group of consumers, all seem to be buying the same books over and over. And I think that's sad. What we need to do is celebrate diversity in our field and show the rest of the world we are capable of more than the same old superhero concepts since 1938. The whole comic industry needs a major re-boot.”
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/resishfive03_copy.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/resishfive03_copy_t.jpg" width="165" height="254" align="right" alt="The Resistance #5, page 3" border="0"></a>With the slew of new Wildstorm titles coming out, it might be hard for a new title like The Resistance to survive. But Palmiotti is optimistic that the good buzz surrounding the title will keep it afloat.
“There is only so much money the average reader can spend on monthly titles,” Palmiotti said. “So we never expected big numbers. For that and other obvious reasons, the exposure for The Resistance has been limited. For those that pick the book up, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. So much so that people outside of the industry have approached us about the property looking to develop it. We see this with 21 Down as well, where non-comic readers and other industries are embracing the titles. These are minds that understand that they need more variety in their lives and also look beyond the restrictions of publishing just to have a top seller. People who understand that tastes change and are looking for the next wave to hook on to. Thank God for Jim Lee and Wildstorm. They are willing to take chances and understand that there needs to be chances taken.
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/resishfive04_copy.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Wildstorm/resishfive04_copy_t.jpg" width="165" height="254" align="left" alt="The Resistance #5, page 4" border="0"></a> “Sales could be better, and everyone involved watches each month's numbers come in, and unfortunately, it's less and less. The books are selling out, but the retailers have a responsibility to push and re-order the titles as well. Sales may dictate the amount of issues the book will run, but we look at it this way: Even if we only got 6 issues out, it's a win for us. We are hoping word of mouth and the hard work we all have done with interviews, previews, the mini site ondccomics.com, Justin and I visiting retailer boards and posting replies on Wildstorm's message boards, etc., will help sales, but again, its hard when most fans are perfectly happy not taking a risk on new product. Getting someone to try something new is a risk to them, and realistically, retailers have to push over 250 titles a month. I think the older a reader gets, the more he realizes there is more to life to explore, in every way.
“Both Justin and I deal in reality and we are writing the stories in arcs. We would like to think sales might go up, but if they don't, we do not want the loyal readers to have to pay for it with unfinished tales. Only time will tell. Please go out and buy two copies and turn a friend on to it!”
There’ll be plenty of changes in store for the characters in the coming months. Not to mention lost appendages. “Personal growth, lost limbs, broken hearts, new loves, moral challenges and lots and lots of explosions,” Palmiotti said. “The usual in a world gone mad.”
In addition to the pages above penciled by Santacruz, the computer-generated pages are by Christopher Shy. The sequential pages of issue #5 by Shy outline the accident that establishes the world in which The Resistance takes place.