MattBrady
11-04-2002, 11:17 AM
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/skott_monsterClub.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://classic.newsarama.com/Other_Publishers/skott_monsterClub_t.jpg" width="175" height="268" align="right" border="0" alt="Skottie Young's cover to Monster Club #1"></a>AP Comics has provided Newsarama with a sneak peek at Skottie Young’s cover to December’s Monster Club #1, the debut series from the new, UK-based publisher. According to AP publisher Richard Emms, the issue went to print last Friday, and he is expecting the finished book by November 20th. According to Emms, distributors will receive copies of the book before December 1st, all of which should allow for the first issue of the series to be ahead of schedule.
For those who missed it the first time around, Newsarama profiled Monster Club and spoke with Emms about the series…
When the girl next to you in homeroom turns into a werewolf after the teacher yells at her, you know you’ve got problems. But then, when another girl comes after the werewolf with a meat cleaver, you may just be save…or you might have found out that something very strange is going on. Welcome to Monster Club. The first comic from the UK’s newest comic publisher, AP Comics, Monster Club follows Mia and her three friends, all agents for the Organization, as they attempt to curb the Monster epidemic that spreading worldwide. Written by Richard Emms and Kit Wallis, with art by Wallis, the book can best be summed up as Buffy meets The Goonies…and then some.
Due to debut in comic shops in December, the book marks the culmination of both Wallis’ and Emms dreams. The two have known each other for over ten years, their friendship dating back to when Emms was part owner of Chaos City Comics in St. Albans, UK, and Kit was a regular customer and budding artist just out of University. “Each week, would bring in an A5, photocopied comic that he had produced,” Emms said. “I immediately saw Kit’s great talent, and asked if he would be interested in publishing a comic book. We produced three issues of a comic called Heaven 7. Now we look back on them as a learning curve.”
As a concept, Wallis created Monster Club, and put it in the back of Heaven 7 #3. The idea went into limbo for a bit as Wallis took a break from comics. “Taking time out allowed Kit to improve his art style,” Emms said. “He has always been a fan of manga and graffiti style art. He is influenced by Neil Googe, Joshua Middleton, Jamie Hewlett, Carlos Meglia, Masamune Shirow, Yuzo Takada and Miyazaki Otomo, and combining them together has made Kit’s style a little more individual to regular comic book art.
“After Heaven 7, Kit produced a 24-page Monster Club story – writing, drawing and coloring the whole book – which simply impressed a lot of people… including the Director of Treehouse Productions, Phil Littler. Monster Club was re-written, lettered and 50 copies digitally printed to be shown around the UK’s Comics 2002 show in Bristol. The response was phenomenal. It was time to do a comic, we decided.”
Having started up for business a year ago with Emms as director, AP Comics – the “AP” stands for ‘Autumn Press’ is now closely linked with an international animation producer, Treehouse Productions, and shares the same office space. While still independent from Treehouse, the production company has been, according to Emms, instrumental in building up AP’s publishing venture, and injecting substantial capital into the fledgling publisher to get things off the ground.
“Our goal, mainly, is to find new creators and get their ideas into print,” Emms said. “There are too many talented young people out there who never get a chance to shine… this is where we come in. We want to build APComics into a publishing house and showcase up and coming talent – promoting them to a wider audience. If they’re willing to do the work, APComics is willing to put some money and financial risk into them.”
But – Emms isn’t Pollyanna or wearing rose-colored shades. Despite the gains the industry has made in the last 18 months, establishing a new publishing company in comics is an extremely tough nut to crack, and the market’s history is littered with the corpses of companies who at one time, sounded just like Emms. However, Emms explained that AP is set up to take a slightly different road, and has some unique motivators that other startups didn’t.
“APComics has drive to make it in this industry,” Emms said. “Being backed by an animation company has a major influence on how we do business with readers, retailers and distributors. Firstly, our books have to be on time. If we don’t ship, on time, then the plug is pulled – and we’re out of jobs. But that won’t be the case. We all have a burning ambition to make this company money and to build APComics into something bigger for the future. Positivity is our slogan. If we’re not positive about what we’re doing – why bother?
“Quality of our books is one major factor of the APComics range. We will be printing on top quality paper stock – and will use only the best printer to print our books. Every comic that we produce, including the free Monster Club Preview Edition will carry card stock covers. We want the readers to have something nice to put into their collection after they’ve read it. On all of our first issues we have adopted a retailer/consumer confidence returns policy. Basically if we don’t ship on time – we are offering a full refund to that customer. Direct from us to them. No questions asked. We also guarantee that Monster Club issues 1,2,3 and 4 will ship on time.”
Emms guarantee has teeth because unlike other comic startups, APComics is a full-time gig for many of the production team on the book. Emms has been doing work as a direct market manager with com.x, but Monster Club is Wallis’ full-time job.
Back to the series at hand – okay – so, the title of the book is Monster Club? So where do all the monsters come from, and whose side are they on? Emms offered up the background of the entire concept:
<blockquote>Conspiracy theories? It all started in the late forties when stories about aliens and UFO’s were circulating. Surely these were just stories printed in pulp magazines for the masses?
One of these stories has proved to be a terrible reality. A project led by a Dr. Lazarus, the world’s most influential scientist in genetic modification was taking place in his laboratory, deep in the Carpathian Mountains of Slovakia. His work in this field was years ahead of anything anyone had ever touched before. Not even Dr. Lazarus knew what he was about to create.
Splicing the DNA of an organism that was stumbled upon during a space shuttle mission, with the DNA of Humans, he would create four creatures physically different from each other. They had a high level of intelligence with physical power and prowess to match. These creatures eventually broke loose killing Dr. Lazarus and all his colleagues. Only the private journals of the doctor retain the information of how these ‘Monsters’ were constructed.
One of the side effects of the genetic process is their ability to morph from Monster to Human at will, however, if angered they cannot help but revert to their Monster form. They also realize that to eradicate humanity would ultimately result in the extinction of their race, so they have decided to live along side Humans, infiltrating the government and other high-ranking establishments as well as taking positions in society.
Enter the Organisation, a covert operation set up to deal with the increasing number of Monsters that inhabit the Planet. Based on technology discovered at Roswell, an undetected, custom-built vehicle sits just below the Stratosphere observing the growth and activity of the Monster population. The vehicle is a flying city, five miles long by a mile wide. The vehicle is home to about ten thousand people, families and scientists all trained or in training to combat the Monster epidemic.
The newest recruits to the organisation are Mia, Data, Shelly and Miagi. Selected for their abilities, brilliant individually, but how will they fare as a team?</blockquote>
Running down the characters, the main character, Mia is the north London-born, half-Japanese orphan who’s a loner. Sent to and raised by nuns in a boarding school in the Scottish Highlands, Mia was discovered by the organization after monsters overrun the school. Realizing she has no home and no one who will miss her, the organization recruits her for their cause.
“Mia has no real motivation behind her actions but as the organisation welcome her with open arms into the ‘family’ she finds herself opening up a lot more,” Emms said. “She’s a very laid back person, and is always cracking jokes at other peoples expense, fellow team members let this trait pass as she does it in such a way that it becomes endearing, usually giving a cute grin just at the right time. Mia is very intelligent, although she does not always like to show it. She is also humorous, violent, cheeky, seductive and a beautiful character. She never plays be the rules and has little respect for authority.
“Mia has learnt and mastered a variety of martial arts, as well as leaning weapons including her favorites… the katana and meat cleavers. She has learnt that everything from your hand to a pencil can be crafted in to a killing weapon. Being one of the youngest operatives the organisation has ever seen, she has excelled in everything she has put her mind to.”
As opposed to Mia’s outsider status and recruitment into the organization, Data and Shelly, brother and sister, were born into the organization, and have never experienced life on the outside. “Data is the opposite of Shelly - a vulnerable, shy person he is a geeky computer expert, but when he is required to he can be a experienced fighter,” Emms said. “Shelly, on the other hand, is a boisterous, bouncy person, she is trained in some hand to hand martial arts, but usually opts for guns. She has sort of attached herself more to Miagi than her brother Data, they both play off each other well in that Miagi is the strong silent type and Shelly is not.
“Data soon established his field of expertise in communications and programming, he is the technical side of the team. Shelly, as with most of the younger side of the Organisation are started off on research and reconisense two of the most important parts of the teams well being, but she strives also to be like Mia, and sometimes they act like a couple of spoilt sisters. Shelly hopes one day to have her own team.”
Rounding out the cast is Miagi, a half-Japanese, half-Mongolian gaint of a man. “Miagi acts as a training partner for Mia and also as back up if a situation gets too heavy for her,” Emms said. “He is an expendable part of the team and he knows this and therefore would gladly give his life for any other member of the team. He is a very quiet almost guru like character. Miagi, like Data and Shelly, was born into the Organisation. His mother died at his birth and his father still works for the Organisation as a team leader. Of course Miagi is highly trained in all the hand to hand and weapons martial arts, he is also a firearms specialist. The only reason he is not leader of his own team is because of his quiet personality. Miagi is a loner, and a cold person, it is only when Shelly and him get together that you see a slightly lighter side to him, a more caring, gentle side. Miagi has the utmost respect for Mia, he sees her as a kind of mentor and is also wary of her brilliant fighting skills and dark sense of humor.”
While the series begins in December, AP released a Preview Edition of Monsters Club which was sent out to comic retailers via Diamond, and was met with an enthusiastic response. “We’ve had loads of e-mails from retailers saying that they are going to promote Monster Club in their stores,” Emms said. “We’ve had feedback from big store names as well as independent stores – everyone supportive, which is half the battle. If we sell enough copies of issue #1 and #2 of Monster Club the promo comics will be a regular feature for us on upcoming projects. Every retailer loves a freebie. Additionally, issue #1 will have a 1:5 variant cover by Skott Young who is drawing Spider-Man: Legend of the Spider-Clan for Marvel. We’re trying to do everything we can to help retailers promote and sell Monster Club.”
Aside from issues #1 and #2, the ongoing Monster Club series will be stand-alone issues. “Anyone picking up a Monster Club comic, then after, will be able to read it at any point,” Emms said. “The first story arc throws the reader straight into an adventure with the lead character, Mia.”
With the first issue yet to hit the stands, Emms said that, thanks to Treehouse’s proximity to the publisher, the property is already being eyed up for translation into other media. “Monster Club has already received ‘major TV interest’ turning the adventures of Mia and the crew into a 26-52 episode animated serial,” Emms said. “That’s all we can say at the moment, as contracts haven’t been discussed – but the likelihood of this happening is very real indeed. Treehouse is pursuing the animation deal. That’s well and good, but Kit and I are anxious to get the comic out, and keep it coming monthly. Animation and other projects are wonderful, but we’re in this to produce the comics.”
For those who missed it the first time around, Newsarama profiled Monster Club and spoke with Emms about the series…
When the girl next to you in homeroom turns into a werewolf after the teacher yells at her, you know you’ve got problems. But then, when another girl comes after the werewolf with a meat cleaver, you may just be save…or you might have found out that something very strange is going on. Welcome to Monster Club. The first comic from the UK’s newest comic publisher, AP Comics, Monster Club follows Mia and her three friends, all agents for the Organization, as they attempt to curb the Monster epidemic that spreading worldwide. Written by Richard Emms and Kit Wallis, with art by Wallis, the book can best be summed up as Buffy meets The Goonies…and then some.
Due to debut in comic shops in December, the book marks the culmination of both Wallis’ and Emms dreams. The two have known each other for over ten years, their friendship dating back to when Emms was part owner of Chaos City Comics in St. Albans, UK, and Kit was a regular customer and budding artist just out of University. “Each week, would bring in an A5, photocopied comic that he had produced,” Emms said. “I immediately saw Kit’s great talent, and asked if he would be interested in publishing a comic book. We produced three issues of a comic called Heaven 7. Now we look back on them as a learning curve.”
As a concept, Wallis created Monster Club, and put it in the back of Heaven 7 #3. The idea went into limbo for a bit as Wallis took a break from comics. “Taking time out allowed Kit to improve his art style,” Emms said. “He has always been a fan of manga and graffiti style art. He is influenced by Neil Googe, Joshua Middleton, Jamie Hewlett, Carlos Meglia, Masamune Shirow, Yuzo Takada and Miyazaki Otomo, and combining them together has made Kit’s style a little more individual to regular comic book art.
“After Heaven 7, Kit produced a 24-page Monster Club story – writing, drawing and coloring the whole book – which simply impressed a lot of people… including the Director of Treehouse Productions, Phil Littler. Monster Club was re-written, lettered and 50 copies digitally printed to be shown around the UK’s Comics 2002 show in Bristol. The response was phenomenal. It was time to do a comic, we decided.”
Having started up for business a year ago with Emms as director, AP Comics – the “AP” stands for ‘Autumn Press’ is now closely linked with an international animation producer, Treehouse Productions, and shares the same office space. While still independent from Treehouse, the production company has been, according to Emms, instrumental in building up AP’s publishing venture, and injecting substantial capital into the fledgling publisher to get things off the ground.
“Our goal, mainly, is to find new creators and get their ideas into print,” Emms said. “There are too many talented young people out there who never get a chance to shine… this is where we come in. We want to build APComics into a publishing house and showcase up and coming talent – promoting them to a wider audience. If they’re willing to do the work, APComics is willing to put some money and financial risk into them.”
But – Emms isn’t Pollyanna or wearing rose-colored shades. Despite the gains the industry has made in the last 18 months, establishing a new publishing company in comics is an extremely tough nut to crack, and the market’s history is littered with the corpses of companies who at one time, sounded just like Emms. However, Emms explained that AP is set up to take a slightly different road, and has some unique motivators that other startups didn’t.
“APComics has drive to make it in this industry,” Emms said. “Being backed by an animation company has a major influence on how we do business with readers, retailers and distributors. Firstly, our books have to be on time. If we don’t ship, on time, then the plug is pulled – and we’re out of jobs. But that won’t be the case. We all have a burning ambition to make this company money and to build APComics into something bigger for the future. Positivity is our slogan. If we’re not positive about what we’re doing – why bother?
“Quality of our books is one major factor of the APComics range. We will be printing on top quality paper stock – and will use only the best printer to print our books. Every comic that we produce, including the free Monster Club Preview Edition will carry card stock covers. We want the readers to have something nice to put into their collection after they’ve read it. On all of our first issues we have adopted a retailer/consumer confidence returns policy. Basically if we don’t ship on time – we are offering a full refund to that customer. Direct from us to them. No questions asked. We also guarantee that Monster Club issues 1,2,3 and 4 will ship on time.”
Emms guarantee has teeth because unlike other comic startups, APComics is a full-time gig for many of the production team on the book. Emms has been doing work as a direct market manager with com.x, but Monster Club is Wallis’ full-time job.
Back to the series at hand – okay – so, the title of the book is Monster Club? So where do all the monsters come from, and whose side are they on? Emms offered up the background of the entire concept:
<blockquote>Conspiracy theories? It all started in the late forties when stories about aliens and UFO’s were circulating. Surely these were just stories printed in pulp magazines for the masses?
One of these stories has proved to be a terrible reality. A project led by a Dr. Lazarus, the world’s most influential scientist in genetic modification was taking place in his laboratory, deep in the Carpathian Mountains of Slovakia. His work in this field was years ahead of anything anyone had ever touched before. Not even Dr. Lazarus knew what he was about to create.
Splicing the DNA of an organism that was stumbled upon during a space shuttle mission, with the DNA of Humans, he would create four creatures physically different from each other. They had a high level of intelligence with physical power and prowess to match. These creatures eventually broke loose killing Dr. Lazarus and all his colleagues. Only the private journals of the doctor retain the information of how these ‘Monsters’ were constructed.
One of the side effects of the genetic process is their ability to morph from Monster to Human at will, however, if angered they cannot help but revert to their Monster form. They also realize that to eradicate humanity would ultimately result in the extinction of their race, so they have decided to live along side Humans, infiltrating the government and other high-ranking establishments as well as taking positions in society.
Enter the Organisation, a covert operation set up to deal with the increasing number of Monsters that inhabit the Planet. Based on technology discovered at Roswell, an undetected, custom-built vehicle sits just below the Stratosphere observing the growth and activity of the Monster population. The vehicle is a flying city, five miles long by a mile wide. The vehicle is home to about ten thousand people, families and scientists all trained or in training to combat the Monster epidemic.
The newest recruits to the organisation are Mia, Data, Shelly and Miagi. Selected for their abilities, brilliant individually, but how will they fare as a team?</blockquote>
Running down the characters, the main character, Mia is the north London-born, half-Japanese orphan who’s a loner. Sent to and raised by nuns in a boarding school in the Scottish Highlands, Mia was discovered by the organization after monsters overrun the school. Realizing she has no home and no one who will miss her, the organization recruits her for their cause.
“Mia has no real motivation behind her actions but as the organisation welcome her with open arms into the ‘family’ she finds herself opening up a lot more,” Emms said. “She’s a very laid back person, and is always cracking jokes at other peoples expense, fellow team members let this trait pass as she does it in such a way that it becomes endearing, usually giving a cute grin just at the right time. Mia is very intelligent, although she does not always like to show it. She is also humorous, violent, cheeky, seductive and a beautiful character. She never plays be the rules and has little respect for authority.
“Mia has learnt and mastered a variety of martial arts, as well as leaning weapons including her favorites… the katana and meat cleavers. She has learnt that everything from your hand to a pencil can be crafted in to a killing weapon. Being one of the youngest operatives the organisation has ever seen, she has excelled in everything she has put her mind to.”
As opposed to Mia’s outsider status and recruitment into the organization, Data and Shelly, brother and sister, were born into the organization, and have never experienced life on the outside. “Data is the opposite of Shelly - a vulnerable, shy person he is a geeky computer expert, but when he is required to he can be a experienced fighter,” Emms said. “Shelly, on the other hand, is a boisterous, bouncy person, she is trained in some hand to hand martial arts, but usually opts for guns. She has sort of attached herself more to Miagi than her brother Data, they both play off each other well in that Miagi is the strong silent type and Shelly is not.
“Data soon established his field of expertise in communications and programming, he is the technical side of the team. Shelly, as with most of the younger side of the Organisation are started off on research and reconisense two of the most important parts of the teams well being, but she strives also to be like Mia, and sometimes they act like a couple of spoilt sisters. Shelly hopes one day to have her own team.”
Rounding out the cast is Miagi, a half-Japanese, half-Mongolian gaint of a man. “Miagi acts as a training partner for Mia and also as back up if a situation gets too heavy for her,” Emms said. “He is an expendable part of the team and he knows this and therefore would gladly give his life for any other member of the team. He is a very quiet almost guru like character. Miagi, like Data and Shelly, was born into the Organisation. His mother died at his birth and his father still works for the Organisation as a team leader. Of course Miagi is highly trained in all the hand to hand and weapons martial arts, he is also a firearms specialist. The only reason he is not leader of his own team is because of his quiet personality. Miagi is a loner, and a cold person, it is only when Shelly and him get together that you see a slightly lighter side to him, a more caring, gentle side. Miagi has the utmost respect for Mia, he sees her as a kind of mentor and is also wary of her brilliant fighting skills and dark sense of humor.”
While the series begins in December, AP released a Preview Edition of Monsters Club which was sent out to comic retailers via Diamond, and was met with an enthusiastic response. “We’ve had loads of e-mails from retailers saying that they are going to promote Monster Club in their stores,” Emms said. “We’ve had feedback from big store names as well as independent stores – everyone supportive, which is half the battle. If we sell enough copies of issue #1 and #2 of Monster Club the promo comics will be a regular feature for us on upcoming projects. Every retailer loves a freebie. Additionally, issue #1 will have a 1:5 variant cover by Skott Young who is drawing Spider-Man: Legend of the Spider-Clan for Marvel. We’re trying to do everything we can to help retailers promote and sell Monster Club.”
Aside from issues #1 and #2, the ongoing Monster Club series will be stand-alone issues. “Anyone picking up a Monster Club comic, then after, will be able to read it at any point,” Emms said. “The first story arc throws the reader straight into an adventure with the lead character, Mia.”
With the first issue yet to hit the stands, Emms said that, thanks to Treehouse’s proximity to the publisher, the property is already being eyed up for translation into other media. “Monster Club has already received ‘major TV interest’ turning the adventures of Mia and the crew into a 26-52 episode animated serial,” Emms said. “That’s all we can say at the moment, as contracts haven’t been discussed – but the likelihood of this happening is very real indeed. Treehouse is pursuing the animation deal. That’s well and good, but Kit and I are anxious to get the comic out, and keep it coming monthly. Animation and other projects are wonderful, but we’re in this to produce the comics.”