MattBrady
09-05-2006, 08:12 AM
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/joe_benitez_vaneta.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/joe_benitez_vaneta_t.jpg" border="0" align="right"></a><i>by Vaneta Rogers</i>
While some fun announcements about Canadian and All-Star superheroes dominated the big news at the Toronto Comic Book Expo this weekend, the buzz on the con floor among other creators concentrated on a lot of new characters and series being released in the coming months.
Newsarama checked out a few tables and talked to a handful of creators about the work they're doing now and in the future.
-----
Joe Benitez said a surprise character shows up in the fill-in issue he's doing for <b>Supergirl</b> -- a character for whom this is a first appearance. Benitez had a copy of the art for the last page of the issue, and it's a full splash page of Power Boy, the character who was first hinted about in <b>Teen Titans</b> last week.
"There's this really intense fight, and then Power Boy shows up at the end," he said, adding that, unfortunately, he won't be drawing the next issue, so he knows absolutely nothing about Power Boy beyond the that one page.
The story for the issue, which teams Supergirl with Grace from the <b>Outsiders</b>, focuses on the two of them trying to infiltrate a group of modern-day pirates. "It's my first time drawing the new Supergirl. Well, actually I did a cover for Supergirl with Power Girl on the cover," he said. "But this is the first time I've really gotten to work with the character."
Fans will also see his art in the next issue of <b>Detective Comics</b> by Paul Dini. "It's a Poison Ivy story, and they also introduce a new villain," he said. Who is the new character? "You'll see. It's vegetation related. Poison Ivy is basically the cause of his creation."
-----
Humberto Ramos, the penciler on the ongoing <b>Wolverine</b> series, is also working with Paul Jenkins again on a creator-owned project. "I want to keep working with Marvel and have been talking to them about my next project," he said. "But the creator-owned project with Paul will come out maybe next year, next summer or so. It's about fairy tales, in a different kind of perspective, but fairy tale characters."
With <b>Wolverine</b>, Ramos said he's currently up to Issue #48 of the series. "We're still doing the Civil War thing, looking at Wolverine's perspective of the big, big story," he said. "He stands with Iron Man, so you'll see a lot of action and a bit of gore. It's a blast drawing this guy."
Ramos was surprised Marvel asked him to draw the character because Wolverine is stereotypically drawn in a more gritty style. "I never thought Marvel would ask me to do that character because of my style and the 'cartoony' thing that people claim that I have," he said. "So when they asked me to it, I said of course I would do it!"
-----
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/dale_eaglesham_vaneta.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/dale_eaglesham_vaneta_t.jpg" border="0" align="left"></a>Dale Eaglesham is wrapping up pencils for Issue #1 of the <b>Justice Society of America</b> series that begins in December, and he's excited about fans seeing the new version of the team.
"Some people were afraid we were changing the JSA, bringing new blood. They were afraid we were bringing a whole new youth movement with the team. That's not true. All the old guys are still there," Eaglesham said. "That's the thing that always attracted me to the book is the older members. I'm a big fan of the Golden Age and Silver Age. That's what I'm looking forward to drawing is Green Lantern and Mr. Terrific and all these guys. But there's a few new members. They're <i>all</i> going to be really interesting."
Eaglesham said he hopes fans will also like his style on the comic, because Geoff Johns is going in a direction with the stories that plays to his strengths -- namely, getting a little more up-close and personal with the characters and their emotions.
"You know, what we're doing different is we're going to flesh out their personalities a lot more and really get to know them as people too," he said. "And that's one of the things I love to do, with the actors or characters and the way I portray them. I don't use any stock emotions in my panels, so I think fans are going to see all those traditional characters that they all love, but with new dimensions added to their personalities. And all the new ones are really unique, and I think people are really going to love it."
Now that he's completing Issue #1, which new character did he enjoy drawing the most?
"Starman for sure. He's a lot of fun," he said, adding that his favorite page in the first issue is "Starman walking through a building, and he's dancing. He's dancing all over the place."
-----
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/skottie_young_vaneta.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/skottie_young_vaneta_t.jpg" border="0" align="right"></a>Skottie Young was talking about getting to draw a story for the upcoming <b>Spider-Man Legend of the Spider-Clan</b> one-shot from Marvel, a 44-page "Spider-Man Family" comic that comes out in November and includes reprints as well as a new story written by C.B. Cebulski and drawn by Young.
"It's my first series I ever did, and I kind of wanted to try to do it again now that it's five years later and see if I can do a better job of it," he said. "It's really just a crazy, action-adventure comic. It spans over the course of four or five years -- the story does. He goes over to Japan and spends time. And hooks up with Venom. You know, comic book stuff. It's a lot of fun. It's the most fun I've had on a book in a long, long time."
Young said that while he's returning to the same concept, he feels like the story is even better. "It's the same concept. We're just amping up the action a little bit," he said. "It's been five years since I penciled it, so I've gotten a little better, learned a little bit more. This time I'm penciling, inking and coloring the whole thing myself, just like on <b>New Warriors</b>, so it's a chance for me to really control the art on it and make sure it goes the way I want it to go."
-----
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/cb_cebulski_vaneta.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/cb_cebulski_vaneta_t.jpg" border="0" align="left"></a>C.B. Cebulski thinks fans of the <b>X-Men: Fairy Tales</b> project that wrapped up last week will be happy to know he just received approval for a new Fairy Tales project. "But I won't say with who just yet," he said. "Might not be the X-Men. I'll take another Marvel character or family of characters and kind of blend it the same way. But a little different. They're going to be a little more modern fairy tales this time."
The writer said he also has something coming up from Marvel that he can't talk about yet, but said it isn't Spider-Man- or X-Men-related. "A book that's spinning out of another book that I've been associated with in the past," he teased.
He was standing at Skottie Young's booth, and emphasized the fun he's been having working with him on the <b>Spider-Man Legend of the Spider-Clan</b> project. Another Marvel project, his recently announced <b>Dakota North</b> comic with artist Lauren McCubbin, has been delayed some because of the events of <b>Civil War</b>. "Not because of schedule or anything like that, but because of the events and how <b>Civil War</b> is ending, it affected our <b>Dakota North</b> pitch," he explained. "We're in the process of retooling that. We're going to hopefully get it out next summer."
Cebulski also has three projects coming from Image: <b>Drain</b>, which is a vampire book that comes out in November; the quarterly anthology <b>Wonderlost</b>, which he calls his "autobiographical tale of drunken teenage adventures," coming out in December; and launching in 2007, the fantasy book <b>Shiki</b>, with "an amazing artist from Portugal, Joao Lemos."
Cebulski said he found the artist for <b>Drain</b>, Sana Takeda, through an online talent search. "She's a Japanese painter. She's been doing a fantastic job," he said. "Drain is basically my take on the vampire genre, because I've looked at a lot of the different movies like the Ann Rice films or the books -- you know, all this different vampire stuff. I had different ideas about how vampires are handled because everybody has different takes, and this is my take on it. She's a female ninja who gets turned, and it's the adventure that she has trying to track down the guy who turned her over the centuries."
He said the comic will be different because he'll show her growing because of her immortality. "If you had an immortal life, what would you do? I'd take advantage. If you could do anything you want and you're never going to die, you could live life to the fullest. It's about her trying to balance her life with this need for revenge," he said. "But still sucking people's blood, and trying to find ways around that. With being a vampire, you do have mortal enemies, so it takes everything into consideration. There's plenty of action."
The writer also wanted to remind people to buy the anthology for ACTOR (A Commitment to Our Roots), called <b>ACTOR Comics Presents</b>, a 152-page anthology which will be released on Sept. 13. "It's for a great cause. You know -- it's for ACTOR. Those who came before," he said.
------
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/josh_middleton_vaneta.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/josh_middleton_vaneta_t.jpg" border="0" align="right"></a>Josh Middleton, a DC exclusive artist, has been mainly working on covers for the <b>American Virgin</b> comic from Vertigo lately, but he said fans can expect more covers from him in the regular DCU as well as one more project that is currently in the early planning stages.
"With covers, I think I'm going to focus on the big guns," he said. "Not just one, actually. I'll probably do all the main characters. They're giving me a lot of freedom to follow my heart's desire, but focusing on Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and all those sorts of characters."
As for his next DC project on interiors, Middleton said there's definitely something coming. "I'm going to be doing at least one more DC project, which we are crafting right now, and they're giving me an awful lot of freedom to put together something I really want to draw," Middleton said. "It's too soon to talk about it, really, but I couldn't be happier about how it's coming together."
Middleton said there's already a writer in mind for the project. "There is a collaborator in mind, but again, I can't really talk about it. It's going to be awhile because DC's smart enough to not schedule it until it's done, and then drop it into the schedule because it will be a stand-alone story," he said, adding that "stand-alone" doesn't necessarily mean it will be a miniseries. "It may very well actually be in a regular book as an arc, because when I did <b>Superman/Shazam</b>, that was a miniseries, and it did well, but miniseries tend to be on the peripheral. So this time I think we're going to drop it in as an arc, but still have it sort of stand alone by itself so it will collect nicely."
-----
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/mark_morales_vaneta.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/mark_morales_vaneta_t.jpg" border="0" align="left"></a>Mark Morales, who is currently inking <b>Uncanny X-Men</b> for Clayton Henry, said he has a project coming up with Olivier Coipel that he can't talk about yet.
Is it a <b>Civil War</b> spin-off? "Kinda, sorta. It's an ongoing series with an old-time character," he said.
He also just finished work on the cover of an <b>Illuminati</b> issue, as well as the Spider-Man Stan Lee comic that's coming out. "It's a very odd book, but it's good," he laughed. "We caught his likeness pretty well, with the big glasses."
-----
David Finch, who will be the penciler on <b>Moon Knight</b> for 12 issues, said he's been talking to Marvel about doing "something with Spider-Man" as his next project. "I've been talking to C.B. [Cebulski] about it, and I guess he talked to Marvel and they seem receptive," Finch said. "So it's something. If I had my way, I would love to do something with Spider-Man and Black Cat. It's just fun drawing women in tights. I never get to do that anymore, so I kind of miss it."
<b>Moon Knight</b> has been a good fit for his art style, Finch said. "I feel much more comfortable drawing that kind of stuff," he said, indicating that <b>New Avengers</b> was a tougher fit for him.
And what is he drawing in <b>Moon Knight</b> right now? "Right now I'm working on Issue #6. Moon Knight's fighting Taskmaster, and then he talks to a statue, and then they have a party at the end," he laughed. "Whenever I'm drawing Taskmaster, I'm having a great time. I love it. He's got like the skull face, you know. He's got such an outrageous costume. I was glad it's the old costume. I mean, I loved UDON's costume they put him in, but in the script it asked for him to be in his old costume, and I loved it. It's so over-the-top and ridiculous looking, but fun."
-----
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/cameron_stewart_vaneta.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/cameron_stewart_vaneta_t.jpg" border="0" align="right"></a>Cameron Stewart said the five-issue miniseries he's drawing called <b>The Other Side</b> is "quite a departure" from the superhero stuff he'd been doing. The comic, which takes place within the Vietnam War, will be coming out in October from Vertigo.
"I've said before that I'm best known for a Batman spin-off and a comic about a scuba diver and a talking fish, so doing a war comic was something that I never really thought that I would do," he laughed. "But it's been a challenge and I'm enjoying it."
He called the comic a war horror story. "It's very, very intense. Very dark. Definitely R-rated," he said. "There are two main characters: one is an American solider; one is a North Vietnamese solider. And the story is told from both perspectives. We see the war from both sides. And their stories intersect and overlap."
Stewart said he thinks readers of superhero stories should give it a chance. "I think, genre aside, it's just a great story. I mean, I was won over by it. I would never really consider doing a war story, but then I read the script, and I knew immediately that I wanted to work on it," he said. "So yeah, I think anyone who enjoys a good story will like it."
While some fun announcements about Canadian and All-Star superheroes dominated the big news at the Toronto Comic Book Expo this weekend, the buzz on the con floor among other creators concentrated on a lot of new characters and series being released in the coming months.
Newsarama checked out a few tables and talked to a handful of creators about the work they're doing now and in the future.
-----
Joe Benitez said a surprise character shows up in the fill-in issue he's doing for <b>Supergirl</b> -- a character for whom this is a first appearance. Benitez had a copy of the art for the last page of the issue, and it's a full splash page of Power Boy, the character who was first hinted about in <b>Teen Titans</b> last week.
"There's this really intense fight, and then Power Boy shows up at the end," he said, adding that, unfortunately, he won't be drawing the next issue, so he knows absolutely nothing about Power Boy beyond the that one page.
The story for the issue, which teams Supergirl with Grace from the <b>Outsiders</b>, focuses on the two of them trying to infiltrate a group of modern-day pirates. "It's my first time drawing the new Supergirl. Well, actually I did a cover for Supergirl with Power Girl on the cover," he said. "But this is the first time I've really gotten to work with the character."
Fans will also see his art in the next issue of <b>Detective Comics</b> by Paul Dini. "It's a Poison Ivy story, and they also introduce a new villain," he said. Who is the new character? "You'll see. It's vegetation related. Poison Ivy is basically the cause of his creation."
-----
Humberto Ramos, the penciler on the ongoing <b>Wolverine</b> series, is also working with Paul Jenkins again on a creator-owned project. "I want to keep working with Marvel and have been talking to them about my next project," he said. "But the creator-owned project with Paul will come out maybe next year, next summer or so. It's about fairy tales, in a different kind of perspective, but fairy tale characters."
With <b>Wolverine</b>, Ramos said he's currently up to Issue #48 of the series. "We're still doing the Civil War thing, looking at Wolverine's perspective of the big, big story," he said. "He stands with Iron Man, so you'll see a lot of action and a bit of gore. It's a blast drawing this guy."
Ramos was surprised Marvel asked him to draw the character because Wolverine is stereotypically drawn in a more gritty style. "I never thought Marvel would ask me to do that character because of my style and the 'cartoony' thing that people claim that I have," he said. "So when they asked me to it, I said of course I would do it!"
-----
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/dale_eaglesham_vaneta.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/dale_eaglesham_vaneta_t.jpg" border="0" align="left"></a>Dale Eaglesham is wrapping up pencils for Issue #1 of the <b>Justice Society of America</b> series that begins in December, and he's excited about fans seeing the new version of the team.
"Some people were afraid we were changing the JSA, bringing new blood. They were afraid we were bringing a whole new youth movement with the team. That's not true. All the old guys are still there," Eaglesham said. "That's the thing that always attracted me to the book is the older members. I'm a big fan of the Golden Age and Silver Age. That's what I'm looking forward to drawing is Green Lantern and Mr. Terrific and all these guys. But there's a few new members. They're <i>all</i> going to be really interesting."
Eaglesham said he hopes fans will also like his style on the comic, because Geoff Johns is going in a direction with the stories that plays to his strengths -- namely, getting a little more up-close and personal with the characters and their emotions.
"You know, what we're doing different is we're going to flesh out their personalities a lot more and really get to know them as people too," he said. "And that's one of the things I love to do, with the actors or characters and the way I portray them. I don't use any stock emotions in my panels, so I think fans are going to see all those traditional characters that they all love, but with new dimensions added to their personalities. And all the new ones are really unique, and I think people are really going to love it."
Now that he's completing Issue #1, which new character did he enjoy drawing the most?
"Starman for sure. He's a lot of fun," he said, adding that his favorite page in the first issue is "Starman walking through a building, and he's dancing. He's dancing all over the place."
-----
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/skottie_young_vaneta.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/skottie_young_vaneta_t.jpg" border="0" align="right"></a>Skottie Young was talking about getting to draw a story for the upcoming <b>Spider-Man Legend of the Spider-Clan</b> one-shot from Marvel, a 44-page "Spider-Man Family" comic that comes out in November and includes reprints as well as a new story written by C.B. Cebulski and drawn by Young.
"It's my first series I ever did, and I kind of wanted to try to do it again now that it's five years later and see if I can do a better job of it," he said. "It's really just a crazy, action-adventure comic. It spans over the course of four or five years -- the story does. He goes over to Japan and spends time. And hooks up with Venom. You know, comic book stuff. It's a lot of fun. It's the most fun I've had on a book in a long, long time."
Young said that while he's returning to the same concept, he feels like the story is even better. "It's the same concept. We're just amping up the action a little bit," he said. "It's been five years since I penciled it, so I've gotten a little better, learned a little bit more. This time I'm penciling, inking and coloring the whole thing myself, just like on <b>New Warriors</b>, so it's a chance for me to really control the art on it and make sure it goes the way I want it to go."
-----
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/cb_cebulski_vaneta.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/cb_cebulski_vaneta_t.jpg" border="0" align="left"></a>C.B. Cebulski thinks fans of the <b>X-Men: Fairy Tales</b> project that wrapped up last week will be happy to know he just received approval for a new Fairy Tales project. "But I won't say with who just yet," he said. "Might not be the X-Men. I'll take another Marvel character or family of characters and kind of blend it the same way. But a little different. They're going to be a little more modern fairy tales this time."
The writer said he also has something coming up from Marvel that he can't talk about yet, but said it isn't Spider-Man- or X-Men-related. "A book that's spinning out of another book that I've been associated with in the past," he teased.
He was standing at Skottie Young's booth, and emphasized the fun he's been having working with him on the <b>Spider-Man Legend of the Spider-Clan</b> project. Another Marvel project, his recently announced <b>Dakota North</b> comic with artist Lauren McCubbin, has been delayed some because of the events of <b>Civil War</b>. "Not because of schedule or anything like that, but because of the events and how <b>Civil War</b> is ending, it affected our <b>Dakota North</b> pitch," he explained. "We're in the process of retooling that. We're going to hopefully get it out next summer."
Cebulski also has three projects coming from Image: <b>Drain</b>, which is a vampire book that comes out in November; the quarterly anthology <b>Wonderlost</b>, which he calls his "autobiographical tale of drunken teenage adventures," coming out in December; and launching in 2007, the fantasy book <b>Shiki</b>, with "an amazing artist from Portugal, Joao Lemos."
Cebulski said he found the artist for <b>Drain</b>, Sana Takeda, through an online talent search. "She's a Japanese painter. She's been doing a fantastic job," he said. "Drain is basically my take on the vampire genre, because I've looked at a lot of the different movies like the Ann Rice films or the books -- you know, all this different vampire stuff. I had different ideas about how vampires are handled because everybody has different takes, and this is my take on it. She's a female ninja who gets turned, and it's the adventure that she has trying to track down the guy who turned her over the centuries."
He said the comic will be different because he'll show her growing because of her immortality. "If you had an immortal life, what would you do? I'd take advantage. If you could do anything you want and you're never going to die, you could live life to the fullest. It's about her trying to balance her life with this need for revenge," he said. "But still sucking people's blood, and trying to find ways around that. With being a vampire, you do have mortal enemies, so it takes everything into consideration. There's plenty of action."
The writer also wanted to remind people to buy the anthology for ACTOR (A Commitment to Our Roots), called <b>ACTOR Comics Presents</b>, a 152-page anthology which will be released on Sept. 13. "It's for a great cause. You know -- it's for ACTOR. Those who came before," he said.
------
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/josh_middleton_vaneta.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/josh_middleton_vaneta_t.jpg" border="0" align="right"></a>Josh Middleton, a DC exclusive artist, has been mainly working on covers for the <b>American Virgin</b> comic from Vertigo lately, but he said fans can expect more covers from him in the regular DCU as well as one more project that is currently in the early planning stages.
"With covers, I think I'm going to focus on the big guns," he said. "Not just one, actually. I'll probably do all the main characters. They're giving me a lot of freedom to follow my heart's desire, but focusing on Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and all those sorts of characters."
As for his next DC project on interiors, Middleton said there's definitely something coming. "I'm going to be doing at least one more DC project, which we are crafting right now, and they're giving me an awful lot of freedom to put together something I really want to draw," Middleton said. "It's too soon to talk about it, really, but I couldn't be happier about how it's coming together."
Middleton said there's already a writer in mind for the project. "There is a collaborator in mind, but again, I can't really talk about it. It's going to be awhile because DC's smart enough to not schedule it until it's done, and then drop it into the schedule because it will be a stand-alone story," he said, adding that "stand-alone" doesn't necessarily mean it will be a miniseries. "It may very well actually be in a regular book as an arc, because when I did <b>Superman/Shazam</b>, that was a miniseries, and it did well, but miniseries tend to be on the peripheral. So this time I think we're going to drop it in as an arc, but still have it sort of stand alone by itself so it will collect nicely."
-----
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/mark_morales_vaneta.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/mark_morales_vaneta_t.jpg" border="0" align="left"></a>Mark Morales, who is currently inking <b>Uncanny X-Men</b> for Clayton Henry, said he has a project coming up with Olivier Coipel that he can't talk about yet.
Is it a <b>Civil War</b> spin-off? "Kinda, sorta. It's an ongoing series with an old-time character," he said.
He also just finished work on the cover of an <b>Illuminati</b> issue, as well as the Spider-Man Stan Lee comic that's coming out. "It's a very odd book, but it's good," he laughed. "We caught his likeness pretty well, with the big glasses."
-----
David Finch, who will be the penciler on <b>Moon Knight</b> for 12 issues, said he's been talking to Marvel about doing "something with Spider-Man" as his next project. "I've been talking to C.B. [Cebulski] about it, and I guess he talked to Marvel and they seem receptive," Finch said. "So it's something. If I had my way, I would love to do something with Spider-Man and Black Cat. It's just fun drawing women in tights. I never get to do that anymore, so I kind of miss it."
<b>Moon Knight</b> has been a good fit for his art style, Finch said. "I feel much more comfortable drawing that kind of stuff," he said, indicating that <b>New Avengers</b> was a tougher fit for him.
And what is he drawing in <b>Moon Knight</b> right now? "Right now I'm working on Issue #6. Moon Knight's fighting Taskmaster, and then he talks to a statue, and then they have a party at the end," he laughed. "Whenever I'm drawing Taskmaster, I'm having a great time. I love it. He's got like the skull face, you know. He's got such an outrageous costume. I was glad it's the old costume. I mean, I loved UDON's costume they put him in, but in the script it asked for him to be in his old costume, and I loved it. It's so over-the-top and ridiculous looking, but fun."
-----
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/cameron_stewart_vaneta.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Toronto/06/cameron_stewart_vaneta_t.jpg" border="0" align="right"></a>Cameron Stewart said the five-issue miniseries he's drawing called <b>The Other Side</b> is "quite a departure" from the superhero stuff he'd been doing. The comic, which takes place within the Vietnam War, will be coming out in October from Vertigo.
"I've said before that I'm best known for a Batman spin-off and a comic about a scuba diver and a talking fish, so doing a war comic was something that I never really thought that I would do," he laughed. "But it's been a challenge and I'm enjoying it."
He called the comic a war horror story. "It's very, very intense. Very dark. Definitely R-rated," he said. "There are two main characters: one is an American solider; one is a North Vietnamese solider. And the story is told from both perspectives. We see the war from both sides. And their stories intersect and overlap."
Stewart said he thinks readers of superhero stories should give it a chance. "I think, genre aside, it's just a great story. I mean, I was won over by it. I would never really consider doing a war story, but then I read the script, and I knew immediately that I wanted to work on it," he said. "So yeah, I think anyone who enjoys a good story will like it."