Comic Related - What's Perhappenin'?

The Perhapanauts, Todd Dezago and Craig Rousseau's new monthly from Image, is a great X-Files-meets-Hellboy-meets-The Muppets story for (mostly) all ages. After a couple of miniseries at Dark Horse and a little time on the shelf while developing the ongoing, the 'Haps have found themselves a home at Image Comics and, not unlike Booster Gold, this critic has a bit of a love affair with the title and (as sometimes happens when you constantly tell people how great they are) a pretty good relationship with the creators behind it. I own an original page of Perhapanauts art (one of only a half-dozen or so in my very small art collection) and, up until the issue discussed here, had every piece of Perhapanalia that I owned signed by Todd and Craig at the New York Comic Con. I carry one of the "Choopie's butt" cards (if you don't know, you must see it. I'll try to scan one here when the column runs) in my wallet to impose on folks who don't even necessarily read comics.

So, you see, I am a fan.

One of the nice things about being a reporter for a rapidly-growing audience and having a decent track record of not having gotten Dan Jurgens crucified by DC after months of bugging him for clues on Booster, is that people are willing to humor me when I go, "Your book is too damned good. It will be a Hot Shot of the Week every single week it comes out. Your talent is completely unfair to everyone else in the industry. You need to talk to me every month!"

Actually, in fairness, I think Jurgens--a naturally modest man--was a little reluctant, but then I pointed out to him that I wasn't inventing this idea. Before The Gold Exchange ever started, NewsaRama was running something called (originally) "Captain America Is Dead," which esteemed writer Ed Brubaker participates in every month (with an ever-evolving title and on a fairly irregular schedule, as sometimes happens with the busier guys in the biz...which brings us back to Todd Dezago and Craig Rousseau).

At present, Craig Rousseau, though he's interested and may chime in from time to time, is extraordinarily busy and won't be a monthly participant in What's Perhappenin'. That's fine, because the Q&A format we've been using with The Gold Exchange would totally fall apart if ComicRelated (CR) and Craig Rousseau (CR) had to share the stage for too long. But Todd Dezago, kind man that he is, has decided that the goodness of this book shouldn't prevent others from getting a weekly spotlight, and agreed to do a regular sit-down with us. So, without further ado...

ComicRelated: These capsule-review thingies are great for the monthlies, but are you going to keep them intact for the trades? It always takes me out of the story a little to have a summary of the previous chapter.

Todd Dezago: Yeah, they'll stay in. If I left them out, people would complain.

In trying to make our book as accessible as possible, we felt that it would be a good idea to bring back the idea of letting the Reader know what's going on. I know that's kind of unheard of in this day and age, but lately I find more times that I have no idea who some of the characters are and what they can do. Though it's a bit repetitious and, as you point out, it might be a bit jarring to regular Readers at times, I think we need to go back to pretending that each issue is somebody's FIRST issue. That way, they might come back...

CR: I can't help, when I see the Justice Brigade bit, thinking of the first Image Comics issue of Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise, which of course had a superhero parody. Is this something Larsen makes people do by holding them at gunpoint while wearing a giant plastic fin on his head?

TD: Every new book signed to Image must include either a superhero parody or an homage to the Hollywood Squares (and not the new one--the old one with Paul Lynde) within the first four issues or it is immediately cancelled.

CR: And on the topic of that fantasy sequence--Karl has some deep-seated resentment for Choopie, eh? Is it because Choopie mooned him?

TD: We will see more of Choopie's earlier torment of Karl in upcoming issues. He treated that poor, no-hand's-havin'-mothman pretty terribly...

CR: So...these SVU Detectives...those are some sharp-looking dudes. Where DOES Craig get his character design ideas?

TD: This one I'm a little embarrassed about. I had told Craig that I would send him reference on these two from a little, self-published comic I did back in the early 90's. When he got to needing it, and I hadn't dug it up yet, I told him, I don't know, make them look like us. I had meant vaguely, but Craig is an awesome artist!

CR: I think the King Nosmo gag was my favorite single joke from that mini. I'm glad to see it's coming to fruition. But I've always kind of wondered--is it an extra layer of joke that the chupacabra will be king of the race that look suspiciously like goats?

TD: Gosh, that musta been something subliminal that Craig did--I never noticed that...

CR: I have to ask--Choopie asks for a "2000-inch TV." Is that a reference to "Frank's 2000 Inch TV" by Weird Al Yankovic?

TD: Oh, Craig and I are HUGE Al fans!! HUGE!
so, yes.

CR: So MG seemed pretty excited to be officially the "boyfriend." What I was thinking was, is there some official reason why he shouldn't be called that?

TD: I just don't think that he thought that she thought they were at that point in the relationship yet. But apparently she did, so I did, and he did.

CR: And so the implication here--for those who weren't paying attention--is that there's a whole backstory to Molly and Ris that we weren't familiar with? Will that be a backup story someday or something?

TD: Yeah, this like a big onion, with layers and layers of story to peel. I love LOST, so there are a lot of mysteries swirling around here...

CR: Speaking of backup stories, what made you decide to do this one as a prose story instead of a more traditional comic?

TD: In the beginning, Craig and I thought that we were only going to have 22 or 23 pages to play with in each issue, but Image told us that we could have all 28!! With comics costing what they do these days, we really wanted to fill that up with fun and story and pin-ups and stuff like that--to give the Reader their money's worth--and hopefully MORE! So when we found this out, we were already working on Issue 3 and I wanted this to be told as a few pages out of MG's Journal, and my pal, Rich Case, did an amazing job of beautifully illustrating it for us in a very short time!
Rich Rocks!

CR: What's the address folks should write to if they have snail mail letters for you? You solicit them, but don't give a mailing address!

TD: Really? We didn't? What an idiot.

Oh! Right--it's;
The Perhapanauts
52 Calendar House Rd
Elizaville NY 12523

CR: That asked, it's great to see you guys running a letter column--I miss them--but with the cost of printing a color comic and no ad support, are an extra couple of pages a liability in the long run?

TD: Well, like I said, we want to fill this book to the top with cool and fun stuff! If people like the letters column and send stuff in, we'll run it. If it turns out not to be the best use of the space, we'll switch it out with something else. SO, if ya dig having a letters page--send us letters!

CR: A general question, here--for a story called "Triangle," they worked their way out of the Bermuda Triangle pretty easily! I feel like in a title like this, that area is a logically-recurring setting. Will we see it again?

TD: Ha! Oh, YOU think the title refers to the Bermuda Triangle...?

CR: Can you tease next issue for us a little? Other than what Craig said last month about it being a bad issue for Karl?

TD: Umm...no.

Well, wait...okay, yeah...Perhapanauts 3 features three stories that tie very nicely together and reveal a few more secrets about a few of the characters and all lead into the craziness that is Issue 4! This issue is packed with extra story and along with Craig has art by Tad Stones and Kelly Yates! You will not want to miss it! Or issue 4...and especially not issue 5!...