MattBrady
11-28-2002, 09:17 AM
The last time we saw Todd Dezago and Mike Wieringo’s Tellos, it was in the form of the one shot, The Last Heist, with art by Craig Rousseau. More adventures in the fantasy series were promised, but none appeared. This past weekend at Charlotte’s Heroes Con, Newsarama sat down with Dezago to find out where the series is, as well as its roadmap for the future.
“I guess we’re on the Madureira schedule,” Dezago said. “the last time we had any [b]Tellos</b. was last year with The Last Heist, and we solicited Tellos: Sons and Moons for September of 2001, with a cover by Nick Cardy, and stories drawn by Tracie Mauk, Thor Badendyck, and Eric Wolfe Hanson. Due to circumstances beyond our control, Tracie wasn’t able to finish her story. Luckily, Carlo Barberi, late of Impulse has taken over that story, and he should have it done by the end of this month. So, if that comes through, we should be soliciting Sons and Moons for this fall – yeah, a year after it was originally supposed to come out.”
Following Sons and Moons, which will feature smaller stories of the Tellos cast members, the next Tales of Tellos (yet untitled) is in the works, and will feature stories by Belgian artist Mauricet (“We call him ‘Mo-mo’ for short,” Dezago said), Kelly Yates, pinups by European artists, and the comic book return of Howard (JLA) Porter, who will draw a ten page story laying the foundation for the next Tellos story arc.
“Howard should be working on the story now,” Dezago said. “Since he left JLA, DC, and comics, he’s been working in advertising in New York. Rich Faber and Howard and I try to get together once a year, and since he’s left, we’ve stayed in touch. I finally came to him with this idea for a story, and he said he really wanted to do it.
“He misses comics, but at the time, things were getting very crazy. When he left JLA, he really wasn’t offered anything right away, and that helped make up his mind. He’s happy doing what he’s doing, but I’m also happy he’s agreed to do some comics”
As for the stories in the yet-unnamed volume, the story illustrated by Mauricet has already been printed in France by Semic, and is the backstory of Oge K’Tion, the dijinn Jarek freed from the amulet early in the series. “Kelly’s story will show what happens when Serra runs unto Jessa, the S&M dressed bounty hunter,” Dezago said. “Kelly did a really great version of both of them.”
Moving ahead, Porter’s story will clear the path for “Second Coming,” the next arc of the Tellos regular series, which should return in early 2003. “The story will run according to the original numbering,” Dezago said, “Making it Tellos #11 through #17 or #18. We might drag it out to #18, because the end story is getting to be a lot bigger than we thought.”
To allow for the monthly schedule, the art on Tellos: Second Coming will alternate between Wieringo and Rousseau. “It should be hopefully as exciting as the first one, and have twists and turns that are similar to the first story as well,” Dezago said. “So, we’ve got a plan.”
And no – it’s not a coincidence that many of the artists Dezago and ‘Ringo sign for Tellos stories have difficult to pronounce last names. The book has been very well received in Europe, and as a result, many of Europe’s comic artists have sought them out, through their French publisher, Semic.
“Tellos is just huge in Europe,” Dezago said. “Genres other than superhero are huge in Europe. If you go into a large bookstore in Europe, such as Fnac, the one Mike and I visited, you’d be amazed at the rooms full of comic book albums – the slim hardcovers, as well as all the different genres that they cover. Absolutely everything is covered – we saw one called I.R.S. Man, and it had a guy running around with a gun, tracking down tax evaders.
“Science fiction is huge, westerns are really big, crime noir is big, and fantasy is over the top the biggest genre represented in comics. When they saw Tellos, they grabbed it and started reprinting it. From France, it’s been slowly seeping out into the other countries of Europe, and now, we’re being published in Norway, Spain, with bites on the line from Italy, Germany, and we’re definitely going to be published in Russia.”
Because of the way Semic published Tellos in France, the publisher needed shorter material to fill the pages, so Dezago wrote several stories, serving as exposition to the larger series. From there, Semic hooked artists with stories.
But, unlike Jerry Lewis, an American import who has found fame and fortune in France, Dezago said that so far, Tellos has a lot of fame.
Tellos’ success in Europe has helped the bottom line a little, but not a lot,” Dezago said. “For example, Craig drew The Last Heist last year, and had it all done by September, and we still haven’t been able to pay him completely from the sales. We’re publishing our Tales of Tellos as prestige books, which are more expensive to print, and take much longer to pay back on the investment. As a result, we owe Craig money, we owe Norman Lee, who inked stories for us money, and we owe Eric Hanson money, and we haven’t even published his story yet.”
As rough as it looks for Tellos now, Dezago said that getting here was a far rockier road. “I always say that we didn’t know that much about business, and hopefully we’ve learned enough along the way to do it right next time,” Dezago said. “There’s a lot of ups and downs in the comic book industry, and each can be a pretty bad mistake if you don’t make the right decision.
“For example, when Image [publisher of Tellos] first asked about the cover price for Tellos, they asked whether we wanted to sell it for $2.95 or $2.50. Mike and I are comic readers, and we immediately said $2.50. We had no idea how much money we were losing because of that extra $0.45 per issue - probably we lost seven to eight thousand per issue that went to the stands. That would have helped us out tremendously along the way. We were trying to be nice, but we learned that we couldn’t be nice and be successful businessmen at the same time.”
With their mistakes hopefully learned, Dezago said the publishing the new run of issues through Image isn’t a done deal, but is probably the likely way they’ll go. And as for the title of the arc – yeah, it’s hard to name something “Second Coming” and not expect people to ask who or what…
“At the end of the last storyline, a lot of the characters went their separate ways,” Dezago said. “This miniseries will bring some of the characters who can come back, back, and tells about why some of the others can’t come back. Tellos was revealed as an alternate fantasy world, and yet we’re hoping that we’ve proven and will continue to prove that it has a lot of meat as well. So, we do have plans. There’s a lot more to tell than has been told, and a lot more to be seen, and a lot more to learn.”
Like other fantasy epics, Wieringo and Dezago do have an endpoint for Tellos - an end story, but it’s nowhere near ready to be told. “We want to see how long things can go,” Dezago said. “Years from now, we might come to a time where we’re ready to tell the final Tellos story, and there is one…but we have a lot of things to play with and new characters to bring in before we get there. Originally, there were more things that we had to set on the sidelines than there were things we actually got to put in the first storyline. Mike and I want to get a lot of those stories told before we even start to worry about the saying ‘The End.’”
“I guess we’re on the Madureira schedule,” Dezago said. “the last time we had any [b]Tellos</b. was last year with The Last Heist, and we solicited Tellos: Sons and Moons for September of 2001, with a cover by Nick Cardy, and stories drawn by Tracie Mauk, Thor Badendyck, and Eric Wolfe Hanson. Due to circumstances beyond our control, Tracie wasn’t able to finish her story. Luckily, Carlo Barberi, late of Impulse has taken over that story, and he should have it done by the end of this month. So, if that comes through, we should be soliciting Sons and Moons for this fall – yeah, a year after it was originally supposed to come out.”
Following Sons and Moons, which will feature smaller stories of the Tellos cast members, the next Tales of Tellos (yet untitled) is in the works, and will feature stories by Belgian artist Mauricet (“We call him ‘Mo-mo’ for short,” Dezago said), Kelly Yates, pinups by European artists, and the comic book return of Howard (JLA) Porter, who will draw a ten page story laying the foundation for the next Tellos story arc.
“Howard should be working on the story now,” Dezago said. “Since he left JLA, DC, and comics, he’s been working in advertising in New York. Rich Faber and Howard and I try to get together once a year, and since he’s left, we’ve stayed in touch. I finally came to him with this idea for a story, and he said he really wanted to do it.
“He misses comics, but at the time, things were getting very crazy. When he left JLA, he really wasn’t offered anything right away, and that helped make up his mind. He’s happy doing what he’s doing, but I’m also happy he’s agreed to do some comics”
As for the stories in the yet-unnamed volume, the story illustrated by Mauricet has already been printed in France by Semic, and is the backstory of Oge K’Tion, the dijinn Jarek freed from the amulet early in the series. “Kelly’s story will show what happens when Serra runs unto Jessa, the S&M dressed bounty hunter,” Dezago said. “Kelly did a really great version of both of them.”
Moving ahead, Porter’s story will clear the path for “Second Coming,” the next arc of the Tellos regular series, which should return in early 2003. “The story will run according to the original numbering,” Dezago said, “Making it Tellos #11 through #17 or #18. We might drag it out to #18, because the end story is getting to be a lot bigger than we thought.”
To allow for the monthly schedule, the art on Tellos: Second Coming will alternate between Wieringo and Rousseau. “It should be hopefully as exciting as the first one, and have twists and turns that are similar to the first story as well,” Dezago said. “So, we’ve got a plan.”
And no – it’s not a coincidence that many of the artists Dezago and ‘Ringo sign for Tellos stories have difficult to pronounce last names. The book has been very well received in Europe, and as a result, many of Europe’s comic artists have sought them out, through their French publisher, Semic.
“Tellos is just huge in Europe,” Dezago said. “Genres other than superhero are huge in Europe. If you go into a large bookstore in Europe, such as Fnac, the one Mike and I visited, you’d be amazed at the rooms full of comic book albums – the slim hardcovers, as well as all the different genres that they cover. Absolutely everything is covered – we saw one called I.R.S. Man, and it had a guy running around with a gun, tracking down tax evaders.
“Science fiction is huge, westerns are really big, crime noir is big, and fantasy is over the top the biggest genre represented in comics. When they saw Tellos, they grabbed it and started reprinting it. From France, it’s been slowly seeping out into the other countries of Europe, and now, we’re being published in Norway, Spain, with bites on the line from Italy, Germany, and we’re definitely going to be published in Russia.”
Because of the way Semic published Tellos in France, the publisher needed shorter material to fill the pages, so Dezago wrote several stories, serving as exposition to the larger series. From there, Semic hooked artists with stories.
But, unlike Jerry Lewis, an American import who has found fame and fortune in France, Dezago said that so far, Tellos has a lot of fame.
Tellos’ success in Europe has helped the bottom line a little, but not a lot,” Dezago said. “For example, Craig drew The Last Heist last year, and had it all done by September, and we still haven’t been able to pay him completely from the sales. We’re publishing our Tales of Tellos as prestige books, which are more expensive to print, and take much longer to pay back on the investment. As a result, we owe Craig money, we owe Norman Lee, who inked stories for us money, and we owe Eric Hanson money, and we haven’t even published his story yet.”
As rough as it looks for Tellos now, Dezago said that getting here was a far rockier road. “I always say that we didn’t know that much about business, and hopefully we’ve learned enough along the way to do it right next time,” Dezago said. “There’s a lot of ups and downs in the comic book industry, and each can be a pretty bad mistake if you don’t make the right decision.
“For example, when Image [publisher of Tellos] first asked about the cover price for Tellos, they asked whether we wanted to sell it for $2.95 or $2.50. Mike and I are comic readers, and we immediately said $2.50. We had no idea how much money we were losing because of that extra $0.45 per issue - probably we lost seven to eight thousand per issue that went to the stands. That would have helped us out tremendously along the way. We were trying to be nice, but we learned that we couldn’t be nice and be successful businessmen at the same time.”
With their mistakes hopefully learned, Dezago said the publishing the new run of issues through Image isn’t a done deal, but is probably the likely way they’ll go. And as for the title of the arc – yeah, it’s hard to name something “Second Coming” and not expect people to ask who or what…
“At the end of the last storyline, a lot of the characters went their separate ways,” Dezago said. “This miniseries will bring some of the characters who can come back, back, and tells about why some of the others can’t come back. Tellos was revealed as an alternate fantasy world, and yet we’re hoping that we’ve proven and will continue to prove that it has a lot of meat as well. So, we do have plans. There’s a lot more to tell than has been told, and a lot more to be seen, and a lot more to learn.”
Like other fantasy epics, Wieringo and Dezago do have an endpoint for Tellos - an end story, but it’s nowhere near ready to be told. “We want to see how long things can go,” Dezago said. “Years from now, we might come to a time where we’re ready to tell the final Tellos story, and there is one…but we have a lot of things to play with and new characters to bring in before we get there. Originally, there were more things that we had to set on the sidelines than there were things we actually got to put in the first storyline. Mike and I want to get a lot of those stories told before we even start to worry about the saying ‘The End.’”