Indy-Pendant is the first column ever written by Brant W. Fowler running from May 2005 to January 2007. It's a focus on independent comics creators, publishers and titles. These are the reprinted archives, which were originally published on www.comicavalanche.com.
Week 31 - Originally published on January 22, 2006
What up my peeps? Well it's only been a week, and it is the new year and I know people have a lot going on. Not one single email this week, but that's alright. I hope you guys are still out there though reading. That's the important thing. If no one sends me anything that doesn't mean I'm not going to review stuff though. Not by a long shot.
On another note, this week some friends and probably many others have gotten rejections from various companies. I feel their pain as I got two or three last month myself. But there are others who have some good things happening and some people interested in their stuff, so I guess there's an odd balance at work in the comic universe.
Then there are those who have made it
and are enjoying a measure of success, even if it may be small.
These are the people by and large I cover in this column. The
ones who have obviously made it as far as getting a book printed and
most times solicited. These are the cats out there working
hard to see their dreams come to fruition.
That doesn't discount the many who are struggling to get their work to see print, though, like myself. Everyone has a different path. Everyone approaches things differently. Some self-publish, some go through smaller studios, some just send samples to various companies or people, and some take their chances at one of the bigger publishers. The latter are hit and miss, and mostly miss.
Throughout the course of this column so far I have covered what I believe to be a pretty varied group of titles and creators. I've covered books from Image and Dark Horse, and I've covered books a lot of you probably never heard of before this column. And that has always been my goal, to bring to you great books by great creators you may never have taken a chance on.
One such book coming out soon is Zoom Suit, which was brilliantly covered in an interview with the creator by Jason Berek-Lewis. You can read it here.
Some other great books I hope to cover in this column when they come out are the books from new company Astounding Studios. You may remember the writer/founder of the company from a little movie he wrote and played in called Underworld, Kevin Grevioux.
There have been a few interviews over at Newsarama about his turn to comics. From what I've seen so far on the site and through the interviews, he has some modest winners on his hands. They are going more for all ages, but they've got some really cool talent and some cool concepts.
The titles they have slated to come out include:
The Hammer Kid (right) |
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Another title I was turned onto by a friend is Free Fall from Narwain Publishing. While my spending is drastically depleted right now, for the purposes of this column and bringing you the best I sought this one out.
This offering comes to us from the
creative team of Gianluca Piredda, Eric J, Jimmy Palmiotti, David
Bryant, Jay Anacleto, and Brian Haberlin, with a beautiful foreword
by Jeph Loeb, who have done a wonderful job of crafting this
compelling tale about a bank robbery.
The first page's dialogue is enough to make you want to read the entire story. In 3 panels and 7 captions the story is broken down to it's basic premise. Never before have I seen a first page so masterfully executed in the art of storytelling in a comic, and I say that with pure conviction. The information we are given in this one page (out of 8000 robbery attempts, 6400 are failures, and they are to rob one of the most well guarded banks in broad daylight over the holidays!) defines the pacing and the tempo of the story.
From there the story plays out like a movie with the captions serving as a voice over of a previous conversation discussing what would go down during the scene we watch play out simultaneously. One example of such a movie using this technique would be Ocean's Eleven, the remake. It's hard to do in comics and come off well, but Piredda has managed to do just that.
Without giving too much away, the crew is having some problems, but may have found a solution by the end of the issue. The only problem is that solution might require some pretty drastic measures. Measures that could change the lives of a few people irrevocably.
The art in this book is also gorgeous. The unique panel compositions on a couple of pages are top notch. For instance, in one page the panels are laid out as film strips. Each panel tells the story of that panel, which is what any good sequential art does. The attention to detail doesn't hurt either, from the buildings to the gestures, to the expressions and clothing. This is a beautiful book.
Only time will tell what happens next, but I will sure be along for the ride.
Next week I'm going to take a look at Thomas Jane and Steve Niles' Bad Planet from Image, and some other stuff, hopefully some stuff you guys send me so I can pimp your stuff...
...'cause that's how I
roll!
B.-Out
Project and Creator Updates
Zoom Suit had some modest success and made its way into some schools and was critically acclaimed for a while. But then it pretty much disappeared, and to my knowledge its creator, John Taddeo, isn't really doing much in the way of comics right now.
It's no secret that Kevin Grevioux has gone on to much success in the world of comics, having stints in Mainstream comics, most notably his run on New Warriors. He also started another comic imprint soon after this column was originally written called DarkStorm Studios, and he is currently working on a script for a film adaptation of one of the titles from that imprint, I, Frankenstein, among other projects.
Narwain Publishing sadly pretty much died before it really got started. No one's heard anything from them since 2006 to my knowledge.
Brant W. Fowler / Writer, Letter, Creator, Reviewer, Columnist and Comic Related PR Coordinator
Brant W. Fowler has been a professional comic book letterer and logo designer for three years, and has been a freelance editor for the past five years. He has also worked with graphic design, writing and many other area of skills for several years honing his talents. You can learn all about what he's up to by visiting Gonzogoose Design. Brant is also a member of the core operations team at Comic Related.
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