ADAM EGYPT MORTIMER Goes BALLISTIC on The Cosmic Treadmill at FORCES OF GEEK

Adam Egypt Mortimer is a filmmaker, author and co-creator of Black Mack Studio’s Ballistic with Transmetropolitan’sDarick Robertson. Black Mask just reloaded a clip in the form of a beautiful looking trade with the first arc featuring repairman Butch and his sentient Gun.

Adam hops aboard the Cosmic Treadmill today to talk about garbage island that is our dystopian Repo City State and how it might feel to have an addictive personality lodged into your gun as you battle the cities fiercest gangsters.

FOG!: Thanks for Joining us today, Adam! Black Mask Studios just released the trade for Ballistic by you and The legendary Darick Robertson (The Boys, Transmetropolitan, Happy). How did you guys meet?

Adam Egypt Mortimer: I met him at San Diego Comic-Con! We were both drinking late at night at the Hyatt bar — this was years ago when they still had an outdoor patio, before the eventual death crush of overcrowding forced them to shut down that whole scene. Darick and I wound up chatting, he introduced himself — this was back when he and I both still lived in New York. He was in Williamsburg at the time and I made fun of him for it. 

Somehow that brought us together and we started hanging out a lot in New York, hanging in bars together, talking life, the universe, and comics. Many years later — at another Comic-Con — I pitched him the idea of Ballistic and he fell in love with the bat-winged cars.

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FOG! Chats With DES TAYLOR About SCARLETT COUTURE, Comics' High Fashion Super-Spy at FORCES OF GEEK

You might recognize the work of British artist Des Taylor from Titan Comic’s Doctor Who covers and his unique Despop illustrative style found also in Cosmopolitan, FHM and many more high end clients.

His full-length comics include leading ladies The Infamous Katie Rogers and The Vesha Valentine Story.  He continues the tradition of sexy and deadly femme fatales with his latest Titan book, Scarlett Couture. 

Des joins us to take a ride on the Cosmic Treadmill to tell us skinny on his latest lady spy mini-series!

FOG!: Thanks for joining us today, Des! We’ve been enjoying your Titan Doctor Who covers. Tell us how Scarlett came to be!

Des Taylor: I explored the world of fashion with Katie Rogers (my first book) and gradually started to get a feel for Scarlett’s world.  Around then the show Alias was running and I was hugely inspired. 

Later that year at a party for Cosmo, the character and all the other elements fell into place when I saw a group of girls walking past security and into the VIP area to get to a celebrity football player. I thought to myself,“What if that was some sort of Billionaire Criminal… and the CIA needed to gain access to him to plant a bug? What better way than a group of supermodels that can placate his ego… and at the same time plant the device on him?” 

I went home that night and penciled the character that night.

I needed a better name though. Something that combined fashion and action. I started with the name Suzy Fortune (named after a friend from college) but it was only after I watched the Devil Wears Prada and a scene that mentioned the “Couture collection” that light bulbs started off in my head. 

I always wanted to name my daughter Scarlett after the beautiful actress Scarlett O’Hara.

Thus, Scarlett Couture was born back in 2005.

In 2012, I had a daughter which we named Scarlett.

Stylistically, this book is a bit different. How do you achieve the look of the book with computer illustration, yet with a natural feel to the action?

I literally work like an animator putting every element on separate layers in the PSD file. That way I can be more versatile and move layers around, create depth of field and add effects. Steve White (Editor in Chief) once said it looks like animation stills put together to tell a story, which is the desired effect.

Scarlett is a second generation spy, will we hear more of her parent’s origin?

The way I’ve set up this first book is to introduce the main characters to the reading audience and set up the scenario for a future story. In Series One of Scarlett Couture I just wanted to touch on certain elements that will make the story more engrossing down the line. Scarlett’s mother’s past is one of the main stories that will test Scarlett’s psyche, resolve and trust.

It is hard not to fall in love with Scarlett, but yet she is tough and has a lot of skills. Do you think it is a challenge for people to write female action heroes? My favorite characters on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are Agents May, Skye and Bobbi because they are smart and kick-ass.

It is hard to write female action heroes because most action writers and artists are male.

I remember a friend of mine asking me if I was watching 24 one year. I told him no, I was too into Alias. I showed him a scene of Sydney Bristow fighting a bad guy and he laughed his head off when she took a kick to the face. “No woman would stand after that kick” he remarked. I later asked him “ Wouldn’t you be proud to have a woman that could fight like that?”

He answered “Are you crazy? No man wants a woman that can kick his ass!” 

Maybe he was right. What woman (apart from Gina Carano or Ronda Rousey of course) would stand there and trade blows with some muscle-bound meathead ?

Why can’t she be a thinker? Instead of Kickboxing and Tae Kwon Do, why can’t she use close quarter martial arts like Wing Chun and Aikido? Or learn to fight and run with Ninjutsu?

Those two moments stuck with me and helped when defining Scarlett’s character. 

I also remember a conversation with a film producer at SDCC back in 2009. When I asked him why aren’t there more female action stars or female lead action blockbusters like Die Hard and Bourne.

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MATT WAGNER TALKS About WILL EISNER'S THE SPIRIT! - COSMIC TREADMILL AT FORCES OF GEEK

FOG! Chats With MATT WAGNER About WILL EISNER’S THE SPIRIT!

Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) is this week and Dynamite Entertainment gave us an inside scoop about some upcoming announcements.

At the top of the stack is today’s solicitation for the complete creative team for the July’s new ongoing Will Eisner’s The Spirit written by Matt Wagner and drawn by Dan Schkade (San Hannibal). Also, notably, keep on the lookout for some amazing covers by Alex Ross, The Goon’s Eric Powell and so many more.

Of course Matt is most well known for such classics as Grendel, Mage, Sandman Mystery Theatre and a number of memorable Batman stories — my favorite being Batman: Faces (Legends of the Dark Knight). 

Recently at Dynamite he has taken on Green Hornet, Zorro and The Shadow—so no one was surprised at Matt being assigned to scribe Eisner’s The Spirit.

Well, maybe Matt was, and he is here to join us and tell us about it!

FOG!: Matt, thanks for joining us today! The Spirit ongoing is exciting news, and we’re excited you are the one to take it on, though you’ve mentioned that even for you this is intimidating! What made you relent to the requests to take on Denny Colt?

Matt Wagner: Well, I’ve been a big fan of both Eisner and The Spirit for many, many years. As a result of my reverence for both the creator and the property, I at first said, “No” when Dynamite offered me the chance to write an all-new relaunch in honor of the character’s 75th anniversary. 

But both Dynamite publisher Nick Barrucci and their Editor-in-Chief Joe Rybandt were both persistent in getting me on board; “We think you’re perfect for this gig!” Eventually, they broke through my resistance and now I’m happy they did.

When did you first get inspired by Eisner or The Spirit?

I first discovered The Spirit via the over-sized, B&W reprints from Warren Publications in the mid 70s. 

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FOG! Chats With CULLEN BUNN about THE SIXTH GUN: DUST TO DUST - Forces of Geek

Interview conducted by Clay N Ferno
The Sixth Gun is headed toward its final issues but the legacy of the Western will live on.

Before the close of the final The Sixth Gun ongoing series at issue #50, Cullen Bunn explores the story of one of the more important and favored characters of the book, Billjohn O’Henry in the latest mini-series The Sixth Gun: Dust to Dust from Oni Press.

You’re Darn Tootin’ we were able to wrangle some precious time from the very busy Cullen (Hellbreak, Empty Man, Magneto, Brides of Helheim to name a few!) to tell us about Dust To Dust with art by Tyler Crookm as well as another upcoming project.

The Sixth Gun: Dust to Dust can be best described as Lovecraft meets the Spaghetti Western. Issue #2 comes out April 15, so don’t forget to tell your LCS to order some more of this three issue mini and the trades while you are at it!

FOG!: Cullen, thanks for joining us today! Issue #1 of The Sixth Gun: Dust to Dust is out, starring favorite bounty hunter Billjohn O’Henry. Why go back to this, the story of Billjohn?

Cullen Bunn: Thanks for talking with me! Billjohn O’Henry, the star of The Sixth Gun: Dust to Dust, is near and dear to me, so I love talking about the book! Billjohn is my favorite character in the series, but we’ve seen so little of his life before his adventure with Drake Sinclair began. I thought it might be nice to take a look at the man before he got himself turned into a mud golem!

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FOG! Chats With Cartoonist SCOTT McCLOUD About 'THE SCULPTOR' (interview PART 2)

Interview conducted by Clay N Ferno

In 1984, Scott McCloud established a name for himself with his creator owned series, Zot!, receiving a number of Harvey and Eisner award nominations.  He brought Zot! to an end in 1990, after 36 issues.

McCloud returned to comics in 1993 with his book, Understanding Comics, which established him as a comics theorist, presenting a definition, history, vocabulary, and methods of the medium of comics in the form of a graphic novel.  He went on to write two additional books on theory including Reinventing Comics and Making Comics, as writing several Superman Stories and a graphic novel, The New Adventures of Abraham Lincoln.

Last month, Sony Pictures acquired the movie rights to Scott McCloud’s newest creation The Sculptor, his first full length graphic novel.

The Sculptor tells the story of artist David Smith, who makes a deal with Death to sculpt anything he can imagine with his bare hands.  After learning that he only has 200 days to live, and suddenly discovering the love of his life makes the decision of what to create harder than he thought.

The comic book scholar and auteur, McCloud, took some time with us to talk the comic creation process beyond his books in the Understanding Comics and his creator owned Zot! series.

Scott also questions the carbon date of The Golden Age of comics. Was that in the past or are we living it today?

FOG!: Thank you so much for joining us to talk about your book. Your books have formed my college years and were part of my curriculum and really helped me understand the language of comics and even more-so, the possibilities of what comics can be. Thanks for giving us the tools and the language to talk about comics like that.

Scott McCloud: That’s encouraging to hear because it has always been about potential.

Even since I was very young, about what comics can do. That has loomed a lot larger for me than what they have done.

I have always hoped that we had greater things in the future than in the past.

A lot of people are very nostalgic about comics, for them it is about celebrating the wondrous Golden Age — I don’t know, I think The Golden Age is now.


It is always good to be looking at the present and to the future for sure. Did you grow up here (Boston, MA)?

I was born in the area, Lexington, MA. I lived there for the first eighteen years of my life. My family had that house for six years when I was born and had it for another 6 or 7 after I left.

How did you get into comics? Were they always part of your life when you were growing up as a kid and that fostered you into wanting to be a creator?

I was a real snooty little kid. I read real books and I turned down my nose at comics.

People are going to be surprised at that!

At the age of 12 or so, I thought I was too old for comics. I had seen some superhero comics at friend’s houses and it just didn’t do it for me. I was sitting there reading Arthur C. Clarke or Tolkien. I was into Ben Bova at one point, Asimov. Stuff like comics seemed to be crudely drawn. I just wasn’t into that stuff.

But I was friends with a guy named Kurt Busiek in middle school. Kurt and I played chess and billiards. He would come over after school to escape his father who kept giving him pointless jobs to do.

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KEL SYMONS Speaks With FOG! About His Comics REYN and THE MERCENARY SEA! - FORCES OF GEEK

Kel Symons is a producer and director and now at the helm of two great Image Comics books! Last year’s acclaimed The Mercenary Sea took at look at The Pacific Theatre in the days before the Big One, and this year’s Reyn (next issue, #2 hits shelves Wednesday, February 18) is a swashbuckling D&D fantasy affair with a hero who’s not going to be easy to root for.



Kel takes a ride on the Cosmic Treadmill to get to the depths of the sea and over yonder valley, sword in hand!


FOG!: So much to cover, Kel! Thanks for joining us! Let’s start with The Mercenary Sea. First of all, your pre-WWII sea adventure book got some great feedback last year. Not many stories take place on a submarine. How did you get to placing this story in an historical context and in a cool undersea boat?

KEL SYMONS: Yeah, I was surprised as anyone that readers seemed to dive right into it (pun sorta intended…). As for how the idea came about, I think mostly I missed my space-friends from Firefly, and also wanted to relive the thrills of my childhood with Raiders of the Lost Ark. The two came together rather seamlessly to form The Mercenary Sea.

A motley crew of adventurers and mercenaries trying to carve out an existence in the wild frontier of the South Seas against a backdrop of war.

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DIRK MANNING Chats With FOG! About TALES OF MR. RHEE: "KARMAGEDDON" Kickstarter Campaign at FORCES OF GEEK

We love it when a campaign comes together! With over $10k raised for friend of the FOG!, Dirk Manning’s new Tales of Mr. Rhee Karmageddon.

Our Hero Mr. Rhee has paranormal abilities and in this volume heads out to protect a family of orphans in what becomes quite an interesting road trip. Demons, monsters and Cthulhu all make an appearance in this post-armageddon world.



Here’s Dirk to stretch out that origin story and tell us about the rest of his campaign!

FOG!: Dirk! Thanks so much for taking off your mask and revealing yourself to us for Tales of Mr. Rhee: “Karmageddon” in this Kickstarter Korner!

DIRK MANNING: Thanks for having me here, dude! It’s a pleasure!

You see, normally we get ahead of these campaigns, or get in on the ground floor, or the home stretch. You’ve really done it, man. You reached your goal already! How did you do it, man? Mysticism? The occult?

Honestly? I’m blown away by how quickly things have escalated with the Kickstarter for Tales of Mr. Rhee: “Karmageddon.” We hit our funding goal of $6,666 dollars in under eight hours, and as I type this – six days into the campaign – we’re already only a few hundred dollars away from our THIRD stretch goal! What can I say? Horror comic fans are very passionate and very dedicated!

Well, that, and being a devoted acolyte of The Great Cthulhu doesn’t hurt, either. [laughs]

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JEFF LEMIRE Chats With FOG! About 'DESCENDER' on the Cosmic Treadmill at FORCES OF GEEK

That escalated quickly! Before our tape machine was cold with a hot interview with one of the most in-demand writers in the business Jeff Lemire (All-New Hawkeye, Green Arrow, Sweet Tooth, Trillium, Swamp Thing) about his scorching hot new book with Dustin Nguyen (Lil’ Gotham, Detective Comics), Sony acquired the feature film rights to Descender!


Published by Image Comics, Descender is a new science fiction comic appearing on shelves in March, and Jeff was kind enough to take the time to tell us about TIM-21, working with Dustin and creating a whole new universe.

FOG!: Thanks for joining us, Jeff! We’re here to talk about Descender with Dustin Nguyen. What is an overview of the book for our readers out there?

JEFF LEMIRE: Descender is a new monthly science fiction series for Image Comics that I am writing and Dustin Nguyen is drawing and painting.

The high concept is that it centers on a young boy, a robot named TIM-21 in a universe that has outlawed all robots and androids. There is something very special about TIM that everyone seems to want a piece of.

This is TIM’s adventure and quest to discover his own origin and the mystery surrounding his origin in a universe that hates and fears him, slowly building new friendships and companions as he jumps from planet to planet and gets closer to discovering the truth of who he is.

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INTERVIEW: SCOTT MCCLOUD ON SUPERHERO POWERS, COMMUNICATION, AND RETURNING TO COMICS - EARTH PRIME TIME AT DIGBOSTON

INTERVIEW: SCOTT MCCLOUD ON SUPERHERO POWERS, COMMUNICATION, AND RETURNING TO COMICS

Scott McCloud defined the language of comic book creation and critical thought with his lauded 1993 tome Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. In advance of his appearance at Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square on Thursday, February 5, I got a chance to talk with him about his latest 500 page graphic novel, The Sculptor, and his glorious return to comics.
 
What can readers expect from The Sculptor?
 
For starters, it’s big. It’s just under 500 pages long and it is a story about a young sculptor in New York City who had a taste of early success and is now contemplating his life as a loser when he gets an opportunity from a visitor to have everything he needs to succeed — at least physically — but he has only 200 days to live. It’s a traditional Faustian bargain, [but] this time the supernatural visitor is Death, not The Devil. I’m not too keen on devils and Hell, being an atheist.
 
The real challenge [for the main character] is an internal one because as soon as he has power to mold anything with his bare hands, he runs up against his own artistic limitations and desires, and finds it isn’t so easy. When all the other obstacles drop away, there are still those internal obstacles.
 
Then he crashes headlong into this romance at the eleventh hour, and the question of how to spend one’s days becomes critical for him.
 
It is a race against the clock in a way. He has a superpower and it’s about how he deals with having a finite number of days. He can also be penalized if he makes certain decisions, he then has less days. I was seeing these as very much comic book ideas.
 
Yeah, and this is something I had to come to grips with myself, because I was going around for decades talking about how comics can be more than just superheroes. Then I have an idea that I love but it has that superhero quality to it. This is one of the reasons why when the book starts we see that this wish of his in part grows out of the thing he did as a kid. He made a comic where he had a power sort of like this.
 

You are working with these huge archetypes. How did you go about laying out this whole story over 500 pages, incorporating superhero ideas? Was that all there at the beginning?
 
Part of it was, the idea of Death was there. The conceit of what appears to be an angel at the beginning came to me [during] the actual making of it. There were a few decades before I started in earnest working on the project, then there were the five years that took me to make the thing.
 
Is what prompted so many revisions was wanting to try different things out?
 
It was more that the story was starting to come to focus in my mind. The first revision was about fixing things. With each revision, it became about excavating what was below the crap. Seeing the shape of the story of what it wanted to be and pull that story out. Occasionally I would have a neat little bit, something that works with comics or was interesting, and then I would realize that while it might be nice—it didn’t really belong. It didn’t really have anything to do with what that story was ultimately about. If you can pull it off, if you can have the parts reflect the whole, that’s hopefully a book that feels like it has a breathing heart, [that] breathes when it is on the shelf at night.

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Cosmic Treadmill: FOG! Chats With the SECRET IDENTITIES Creative Team of Joines, Faerber and Kyriazis - FORCES OF GEEK

Imagine a land where a ragtag group of heroes with miss-matched powers are thrown together to avenge and seek justice.

That’s right, that world exists and it’s called Canada!

Let’s back up a few steps here.

Image Comics delivers Secret Identities #1 in February, and we’ve assembled our own globe trotting squad — the talented creative team for one of those awkward roundtable conferences with our masks still on!



Writers Brian Joines (Imagine Agents) and Jay Faerber (Copperhead, Graveyard Shift, Gemini) are joined by artist Ilias Kyriazis to give us the skinny on your favorite new superhero team that is almost ready to implode!

FOG!: Thank you guys for joining us to talk Secret Identities #1! I’m a sucker for a good team book — what sets this one apart?

Jay Faerber: A couple things. For one thing, this is a creator-owned book where literally ANYTHING can happen. We don’t have to put the characters back the way we found them. We don’t have to make sure so-and-so is back in costume in time for his big movie.

If you like super-hero books but are tired of the repetition at Marvel and DC, this is the book for you.

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THE GAMBLER (movie review) at FORCES OF GEEK

Review by Clay N Ferno

Produced by Irwin Winkler, Robert Chartoff, 

Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson, David Winkler

Screenplay by William Monahan

Based on The Gambler by James Toback

Directed by Rupert Wyatt

Starring Mark Wahlberg, John Goodman, 

Brie Larson, Michael K. Williams, Jessica Lange, 

Emory Cohen, George Kennedy, Richard Schiff

Mark Wahlberg stars in a remake of 1974’s The Gambler directed by Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Escapist). No, not Kenny Rogers as The Gambler, that came out in 1980!  Wahlberg takes on the role of Jim Bennett, a college professor with a knack for getting in deep with the wrong kinds of people while feeding his gambling habit. 

The rest of the cast features heavy hitters Jessica Lange as Jim’s long-suffering rich mother, John Goodman as Frank the whale and one of our favorite actors from HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and The Wire, Michael Kenneth Williams.

Brie Larsen (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) is Amy Phillips, a literature student working off her student loans nights at an upscale underground Hollywood casino. Amy knows her professor’s secret but is not the only student to be affected by the Bennett’s actions—mirroring points in the original film.

There is more than debt resolution and distracted teaching in this film, however. Wahlberg delivers a serious performance of a man bordering on being out of control with his habits but not an addict.

There may be more to what we see behind Jim Bennett’s blackjack face.

Some other reviewers and I were all invited to what could best be described as a meet and greet with director Rupert Wyatt when he was in town. There, we cozied up and in the least formal way imaginable—over tea sandwiches and soup in the lobby of a Boston hotel—to take advantage of a rare opportunity to talk to the director in an intimate setting. Being on the opposite coast of such regular occurrences, I took full advantage of this and broke bread with Mr. Wyatt and we all picked his brain about working with hometown Hollywood anti-hero Wahlberg his experiences making this movie. Martin Scorsese was once attached to The Gambler, but Rupert was the final directorial choice.

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FOG! Chats With ERIK LARSEN About SAVAGE DRAGON #200! at FORCES OF GEEK

A heavy book hit the shelves this week! Savage Dragon #200 is weighing in as a ‘100-Page Super Spectacular’ and also carries with it the legacy of Erik Larsen’s career, where he has stayed with Dragon and now Malcolm as the titular character.

From the Image Revolution to the age of digital comics, you can rarely find a more ingrained creator or publisher in the industry.

He is able to playfully tip his hat to the Silver Age and Jack Kirby while moving his own book and stories into the future. 

The Image Comics CFO took the time to talk his milestone issue with us—and for that we are grateful and wish him and Dragon many more milestones in the future! 



FOG!: Erik - thank you so much for taking the time! When we saw #200 was hitting shelves, our fins went straight up! Thank you for so many awesome issues! What does this milestone mean to you? 

Erik Larsen: Every issue is a milestone, really. Each one is another number reached and another issue under my belt. The big ones, 50, 100, 150 and 200 are just that much sweeter because I pull out all the stops and involve a number of others to join in the celebration but I don’t think of any issue as ordinary, really. 

In my mind they’re all a big deal. 

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

FOG! Chats With MARK WAID About INSUFFERABLE V. 3! at FORCES OF GEEK

Mark Waid’s Insufferable is headed into Volume 3 this week and he joins us to tell us what to expect from this father/son super hero team-up book that continues to push the envelope of genre and format.

Back in May we talked with Mark about his app and subscription model, and today we check in on to see what is working for Thrillbent Comics and the challenges writing digital comic strips for the app that the creators face. 

In terms of story, Volume 3 or The Complete 3rd Season, has the insufferable Galahad and his father Nocturnus clicking on all cylinders as they go after their publicist’s Meg’s abductors. Will they be in sync for long, or will Nocturnus strangle his fool kid’s arrogant neck?  

Mark gives us some insight!


FOG!: I’ve been reading Insufferable from the beginning, I really dig it. Would you considerIncorruptible, Irredeemable and Insufferable to be trilogy, or is this a separate world?

Mark Waid: Because of the way the continuity works and Insufferable needs to be in a world that hasn’t been ravished by The Plutonian, it’s not exactly the same continuity, but then again we’ve never put a timeframe on stuff. I guess there is always the possibility that Insufferable could lead into Incorruptible andIrredeemable somewhere down the road.

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Cosmic Treadmill: Call An Ambulance! It's THE GATECRASHERS With ZACHARY MORTENSEN! at FORCES OF GEEK

Zachary Mortensen joins the Cosmic Treadmill today to talk about his future tale, The Gatecrashers, available digitally on his website, TheGatecrashers.com. 

Grab the first issue or the first volume to take a look at a future where ambulance drivers are heroes that can travel between cities and predicts what a dystopian future based on tech we are developing in real life today!

FOG!: This is an immersive world, how long has The Gatecrashers been in development? How would you describe the world of Palomar City to first time fans?

Zachary Mortensen: I’ve had the world in my mind for many years, but about 4 years ago I decided to officially start writing it all down.

Palomar City isn’t a dystopia or a nightmare, it is a very real world that closely resembles any overcrowded mega-city of today like Sao Paolo or Mumbai or Lagos. 

Imagine if the population of New York swells to 35 million people in the same footprint and then something like the Occupy Wall Street protest happens and an already overburdened city hall just gives up and says “you think you can do a better job? It’s yours, the Lower East Side just became an independent city-state.” 

Then another neighborhood says, “Hey we want to be independent too!”

Then another … and another…


This, combined with a decades-old failed urban initiative of traffic gates has created a very real set of neighborhood borders that literally contain and define these new Districts.

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DEATHSTROKE #1: TONY DANIEL Takes You Behind the Deadly Scenes - at 13th DIMENSION

Our old friend Clay N. Ferno was able to grab some time with Deathstroke‘s new writer and artist, Tony S. Daniel, at NYCC for this MIGHTY Q&A. Issue #1 is out 10/22, from DC.

Clay N. Ferno: I’ve been a huge fan of yours since Battle for The Cowl, how did you become one of the rare writer/artists as opposed to just drawing?

Tony S. Daniel: Going back to the ’90s actually, I was doing a creator-owned book called The Tenth. That’s where I started getting my desire to start writing. I didn’t set out to write the book to begin with. I was working with Beau Smith as the writer. As the series went on, I wanted to get more and more involved with the story itself. Eventually, I just flew with it. I learned that I really enjoy writing. After that, I wrote a few other series (such) as the creator-owned Image series,Silke, Adrenaline, F-5.

When I came to DC in the early 2000s, 2004, they asked me if I was interested in writing anything. At the time I said “No, I really just want to focus on the art right now,” and it didn’t really come into play until years l later when the opportunity for Battle for the Cowl came in. Then I decided, “Hey, think that’s something I might want to do.”

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The Cosmic Treadmill Goes Behind The Red Curtain With CANNIBAL ISLAND at FORCES OF GEEK

When was the last time you read a good cannibal story set behind the Red Curtain?

Look no further than this new webcomic from Steve Ekstrom, Cannibal Island.

FOG!: Thanks for joining us today! Why are you inspired to do a webcomic based on the Nazino affair, and for the readers, just what is that?

Steve Ekstrom: The “Nazino affair” was an unfortunate set of circumstances that occurred during early 1930’s in the Soviet Union where Stalin and friends came up with something called the “grandiose plan” where various “undesirables” (vagrants, prisoners, people who left their passports at home on accident, affluent land-owners from rural areas, political activists) were all taken to the undeveloped eastern areas of Russia and placed into “Labor Villages” and basically told “build yourself some shelter and start cultivating this land…or die.”

Around 4000 “undesirables” were being sent to an area of Russia known as Tomsk and the local officials, when they learned how many criminals were mixed into their body of 4000 laborers, they panicked and decided to move their Labor Village to the island of Nazino which just happened to be about 2 miles long and half a mile wide.

Because rations and resources were stretched to their absolute maximum through poorly planned efficiency, the Labor Village on Nazino was only given about 20 Tons of flour dumped right on the shore of the island, right out in the open.

Before the prisoners ever arrived, people were dying of exposure and starvation. 

The criminally minded laborers began to form loose gangs. Within weeks of arriving, numerous reports of cannibalism had already been reported.

So the cannibalism is very real - in fact based on real events?

Cannibalism was already occurring in the outlying regions of the Soviet Union because of widespread famine and ecological issues of the time that were similar to what happened in the U.S. with the whole “Dust Bowl” famine. Couple that with the fact that the Communist government was seizing every bit of grain and/ or viable crop for the formation of rations for their labor camps and to feed their growing army and there you have it.

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

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Kickstarter Korner: Chatting SEX & VIOLENCE VOL. 2 With JUSTIN GRAY

Comics writer Justin Gray just wrapped up a longstanding run on Jonah Hexwith longtime writing partner Jimmy Palmiotti.

Gray, Palmiotti, writer Frank Tieri, artist Amanda Connor and colorist Paul Mounts make up PaperFilms, a creative collective that has launched yet another successful Kickstarter Exclusive comics campaign.

Among the awesome rewards available in this Kickstarter-exclusive release, supporters can actually have artwork printed in the book. 

Justin joins us today to talk about the campaign and what sets a PaperFilms project apart from the others in this interview promoting the Sex & Violence Volume 2 Kickstarter that’s running right now.

FOG!: Hi Justin, thanks for joining us today to talk about your Kickstarter for Sex & Violence #2. What does Kickstarter mean for PaperFilms? 

Justin Gray: Kickstarter provides opportunities for us to create work that might not otherwise find a publisher. I believe it also provides us the opportunity to help grow an audience for material that would struggle in a mainstream marketplace, which is dominated by a specific genre. 

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

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KICKSTARTER KORNER: 'DEER EDITOR' with Writer Ryan K. Lindsay at FORCES OF GEEK

Since we profiled his weird and wonderful Monkeybrain book Headspace back in March, Australian writer Ryan K. Lindsay has become one of our favorite independent comic creators.

Other books of note you may be interest in are a run with My Little Pony: Rainbow Dash, and his own books Fatherhood and Ghost Town.

Ryan joins us today to promote his Kickstarter for Deer Editor #1 about an investigative journalist deer, stalking the streets for clues and justice.

This equine-noir story, like the rest, starts with the first trot.

FOG!: Thanks for joining us again, Ryan, this time for a Kickstarter Korner. The campaign just started, correct?

Ryan K Lindsay: Yep, in the very first days of our wild adventure.

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KICKSTARTER KORNER: FROM CAN MAN TO FILE 13; CHILDHOOD COMIC GETS REIMAGINED FOR KICKSTARTER

This edition of Kickstarter Korner kicks the Can with Dan Hosek and also, apparently Keith Koppenhoefer, who jumped in so as not to be silenced any more!

File 13 is a fun retro superhero comic looking for that last boost to make a childhood dream a reality.

Consider your pledges after the jump! 

FOG!: Dan, thanks for taking the time to tell us about File 13! What’s the general scoop?

Dan Hosek: Thanks for having me, Clay. File 13 is a full-color, monthly series about Scott Solson’s high tech, high adventure “hero’s journey” (with a healthy dose of absurdist humor thrown in). The stories draw on equal parts classic superhero storytelling, pop culture references, high drama, science fiction, and historic events that are stranger than fiction.

At its best, it will drop your jaw then make you laugh three pages later. Its also the culmination of a 30 year journey for me and this character.  I created the basis for the book—well, the book now hardly resembles anything like what I created when I was 12, but the basic characters are there.

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DEFEND YOURSELF: ALLEN MCRAE OF IMPROVBOSTON’S COMEDY, AMERICA

Starting this Friday and and ending on Independence Day, ImprovBoston is giving us an original sketch comedy revue show with musical guests and even a few songs. Celebrating all the shaving bumps and concealed warts of this nation of ours — Comedy, America— takes ImprovBoston’s holiday themed sketch comedy series from the Old West to Disney and of course American presidents. Comedy writer and director of the show Allen McRae joins us to talk ceremonial turkey.

Who are you and what are you doing?
My name is Allen McRae. I am the head writer and director of Comedy, America — an all new sketch comedy revue being presented every Friday in June and also on the Fourth of July at ImprovBoston in Central Sq., Cambridge.

How long have you been doing stuff at ImprovBoston?
For about six or seven years now. I lived in New York for a little while when I got out of college, doing comedy there. When I moved back to Boston I did comedy at this place called The Tribe. When they closed down, I started doing comedy at ImprovBoston. I took a couple of years off because I was in a band, as you know (The Tin Thistles!).

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