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| Exclusive sneak peek at issue #3’s cover |
If there is one thing we at Multiversity enjoy more than anything, it is being a loud proponent in the creator-owned comics scene. If we can do hope to do one thing for you when you visit our site, it is to share off comics you may not have heard of but that we are very excited to share with you.
Today, that comic is “Danger Club.” Created by Landry Walker and Eric Jones and published by Image Comics (whose history in teen heroes is rather notable, from staples like “Invincible” to more recent titles like “Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors”), the series stars teenage sidekicks struggling in a world where all of the heroes left to stop a cosmic threat and never came back. With a power vacuum formed, the teen heroes battle each other for dominance whilst still trying to protect the world from a looming cosmic threat.
Last week, a three-page preview appeared in the pages of “Invincible.” Today, we present to you a chat with series creators Walker and Jones about the upcoming book, as well as an exclusive look at the cover to the third issue (above).
The first issue hits stands April 4th, and its FOC date is Monday, March 12th and the Diamond ID is FEB120420. Check out our extensive interview with the series creators after the cut, as well as a six-page preview, and when you’re done be sure to check out “Danger Club” on Facebook for more frequent updates on the series.
The two of you have worked together quite a bit in the past on books like “Supergirl: Adventures in the 8th Grade” and a range of books for SLG. What is it about working together that brings out the best in both of you, and how’d you decide to take this new venture to Image?
ERIC:I think the fact that we learned how to make comics together means that we just speak the same creative language. We were peers as teenagers before we in comics, so we have very similar backgrounds, tastes, and social landmarks which makes us even more in tune creatively. We can use a sort of shorthand with each other; we can each see rough or incomplete work from the other guy and know where he’s going with it before he finishes it.
Image was a natural for us for a few reasons: we wanted to work with a publisher that was really conversant with marketing a superhero book, we wanted total creative control of the project, and we have a number of close friends who work there, so we knew we’d be in good hands.
For something like “Danger Club”, what’s your creative process together? How closely did the two of you work when you were developing the idea, story and look of this book?
LANDRY: It’s all pretty equally split. I’m not to fond of the designations of “writer” and artist” when Eric and I work together — even though Eric does all the art and I do all the writing. All the developmental stuff is very 50/50. It was the same with “Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures” and “Little Gloomy.” Even on projects that only one of us works on, the other usually has some level of involvement. Eric gave me notes on my “Joker’s Asylum: Mad Hatter” script and I do most of his scanning and production-type work.
It’s also worth mentioning that the coloring work of this book is brought forth by a third longtime collaborator: Michael Drake, AKA: “Rusty”. We’ve worked on projects with him as far back as 1991. For us, behind the scenes, this process very much feels like a creative reunion.
Continued belowERIC: When we develop a project together, it’s really fluid until the nuts-and-bolts of it: we both have a lot of input on both the writing and the art, and we toss a lot of ideas back and forth. But then we each crawl into our respective caves when it comes time for the actual drawing or scripting.
There was a protracted period of development on this one. We were both pretty busy with other projects, so we would catch up a couple times a week and discuss where things were. I’d do some sketches, Landry would come up with various concepts, outlines, notes, etc., and then we’d pull it all apart and reassemble things. After about two years of that, we had solid outlines, scripts and character designs, so I started drawing the thing for real.
Of course, we each continue tweaking details up until we go to press — I just gave Landry some notes on #1 just the other day, for example.
So I’m curious – it sounds like this project has been in the works for some time – at least two years. When exactly did “Danger Club” first come about?
LANDRY: I wish I could give a accurate answer. I’ve had a scene in my head for at least 5 years of a teen sidekick jumping out of a crashing plane full of these sky pirate guys, and plummeting towards the surface of the ocean while talking to a friend about some plans they had for later that night. Eventually a title came up — I’m not sure who brought it up — for “Danger Club.” That was three years ago maybe? From there we started making plans in earnest for the series. Sadly, the aforementioned scene isn’t even going to be used anywhere. But that’s the weird thing about the genesis of ideas.
ERIC: Exactly — I mean, when we first began talking about doing this book, we had entirely different ideas and plans for it — it was originally going to be another all-ages series for us — though I think we always intended it to skew a bit older than most of our recent work like “Supergirl.”
I remember starting to do some early character designs while we were on “Batman: The Brave and the Bold,” which would’ve been in late 2009 or early 2010. And we did a really rough sort of ‘test run’ with a few pages that I know were finished by the summer of 2010. It was a long development, for sure.
I’m not going to lie, I’m bummed out that I don’t get a scene involving sky pirates. Everything is better with sky pirates.
LANDRY: Eric actually drew a Sky Pirate scene with Jack Fearless fighting them on some kind of dirigible. It was really just a proof of concept exploration of the style sort of thing. Maybe we’ll put it out there someday.
ERIC: Might make a nice extra for the trade paperback. Trade paperbacks are always better with sky pirates.
As you said Eric, this was originally going to be another all-ages effort, if not a slightly older feeling one, for the two of you. Why’d you decide to take it in a little bit of a different direction than originally planned? Did “Danger Club” just naturally start turning that way as you developed it?
LANDRY: I don’t think there’s really a big difference between most all-ages and mature readers material – nothing that isn’t superficial anyway. We could take our version of “Supergirl” as an example: change the art a little bit, alter the tone of the writing a touch, but still tell almost exactly the same story in the main DCU and it could be very adult. The all-ages versus mature readers thing in comics has to be one of the biggest illusions the industry has perpetrated over the years.
But if you let people think for even a moment that the comic in their hands might be for kids, they get a bit squirmy. This story is exactly the way we want to tell it, mind you. But that’s just because sometimes we enjoy sensationalist levels of extreme violence in the name of justice, and we quickly realized that this was a good vehicle to explore those anti-social tendencies.
Continued belowERIC: We do like extreme violence, this is true. Though it usually manifests in the form of underground bare-knuckle boxing matches we attend while on the convention circuit.
I think part of how we landed at doing a Mature Readers title, as opposed to something more kid-friendly, was that doing something that was just a little more mature seemed like a half-measure. If we’re going to do a book that isn’t for kids, let’s really do it, y’know? I also think that once we committed to the idea, it fed on itself a little: let’s really do some violence, let’s really do some blood — just how badly beaten can we have this character get? What’s the most over-the-top thing we can come up with?
I agree entirely on the whole all-ages vs. mature readers illusion deal. It’s bizarre to me that people so quickly associate “all-ages” with “kids,” and then go forward with ignoring that comic. People don’t ignore a Pixar film because it’s all-ages. I sometimes wonder if it’s more a positioning problem on the publisher side or just a stigma that readers inexplicably can’t get over, but either way, it’s strange.
LANDRY: I wonder if it’s an over-correction from the days of “comics aren’t just for kids anymore!” thinking. Meanwhile our audience numbers are doing what? I don’t know. Maybe they’re better than ever. Maybe printing comics is like printing gold now.
ERIC: I think it’s also tied into the rapidly aging demographic that reads comics, not to mention the readers who have been digging in their heels for the last 25 years or so, unwilling to accept any comic that isn’t expressly for adults. I just think we have room for all of it. We need both All-Ages and Mature Readers comics. And they all need to be good.
I like that the two of you went all-in with the mature direction. It sounds like you really pushed it. Did either of you get to a point where you thought that you’ve gone too far with an idea in “Danger Club”? That maybe that “this much” was “too much?”
LANDRY: Oh no. Definitely not. Even if we did, we’d probably ignore it. If you’re going to accept that superheroes have their foundation in violence, then let’s get seriously violent. I’ve been in a few fights, and I noticed at a young age there were two kinds of fights: the kind where the opponents are posturing and not really committed, and the the kind where you want to make your opponent bleed as much as possible. That second kind is rare. As a species we’re very domesticated. Teenagers, super-powered teenagers in particular, would be considerably less so. They’ve been trained to fight; more importantly, to win. There are very few lines you won’t cross when that’s the culture you’re raised in.
ERIC: More than anything, I think we’re enjoying the look on the other guy’s face when he first sees the latest script or batch of pages. We’ve both uttered the phrase “I can’t believe you went there” once or twice recently.
I feel like I should mention though that this isn’t exploitation — all the violence is there to drive the narrative. This isn’t tongue-in-cheek; it’s not ironic.
You guys briefly touched on when the name “Danger Club” came about, but what exactly does the title mean? Is it associated with the gladiator-style fights that are depicted in the preview from “Invincible” #89, or is it tied to a larger concept in the story?
LANDRY: It doesn’t really mean anything more than “Teen Titans” or “X-Men” might mean. These are the sidekicks, the junior heroes of their world. In simpler times they were the teen super group known as “The Danger Club”, theoretically having awesome and exciting adventures that all had amazing happy endings. Not so much these days. In truth, there’s some things here I can’t really touch on. The one thing I will say is that the book isn’t really about any kind of fight club sort of thing.
Continued below
What can you guys tell us about the cast of characters to this book? In the preview, we’re introduced to at least Kid Vigilante and Apollo. Do they fit into superpowered archetypes at all, or were you looking to go with a fresh blend of characters and power sets?
LANDRY: Each character has roots in an archetype somewhere. Some are fairly obvious while others are a bit more buried. The combination of characters is relatively unique in that we take archetypes from every corner of the media world and re-purpose them as needed. We’ve got Yoshimi Onomoto, a five-inch-tall outcast from Micro-Tokyo that pilots a giant robot; Ladybug, a super-strong, super-fast, flying teenage girl who was a sidekick to a supervillian before all the super-powered adults vanished; The Magician, whose inspiration comes from a combination of 1940s comics and classic Doctor Who; Jack Fearless, who originally fought Nazis during World War 2, and many, many more. Like I said, the inspiration for some characters will be fairly clear while others… not so much.
ERIC: We’re really drawing from a million different places with this one — this isn’t ‘our’ Marvel Universe or ‘our’ DC Universe; it isn’t that direct a parallel. Inspiration from film and TV are finding their way into this book; even events in the real world. Landry and I have always had a fondness for taking seemingly disparate sources and inspirations and finding a way to create something cohesive from that, and that’s absolutely our intention with “Danger Club.”
Perfect segue! I was very curious – what were the major influences for this title, both inside and outside of comics?
LANDRY: As Eric says… there’s a million of them. I take alot of inspiration from Doctor Who in general. Been a fan of that show since I was 11. Still have my official fan club pin somewhere. I put the Oldboy hallway fight scene on loop for about four hours at one point. The Teen Titans cartoon, “Supreme” from Alan Moore, Battlestar Galactica, Starship Troopers, 28 Days Later, Kick Ass…
It’s seriously all over the map. There’s no direct analogy with any of this either. Sometimes there are just elements from something — a scene transition, a character’s expression, a bit of dialog or music — and that takes you in a wholly new direction. Once I find something like that, I usually stop what I’m doing and focus on it, whatever it is, while I build out a scene in my head.
Maybe that’s more inspiration than influences, but the two are inseparable in this instance.
ERIC: Other than poring over a wide variety of comics, I’ve been steeping myself in dark, violent, moody films like Blade Runner, Children of Men and, yes, Fight Club. I’ve also been seeking out crazy action movies like the Crank films, as well as things that you wouldn’t think would be an influence at all, like 1960s Ultraman and Twilight Zone episodes. It’s seriously all over the map.
If Crank was an inspiration, I hope to hell at some point two of the characters turn into giant, Godzilla-style versions of themselves and duke it out. I would buy ten if that happens.
LANDRY: I haven’t actually seen Crank, so the reference is lost on me. That said, I’m not going to say that nothing like that happens in the book. I’m not going to say that it does either, mind you.
ERIC: I’ll just say there is some going to be some crazy fighting. Crazy, insane, hard-to-draw fighting.
Well, before we wrap up, I want people to leave with a strong feeling of “Danger Club.” For the two of you, what do you think makes “Danger Club” stand out amidst the rest of the books on the racks? What are you most jazzed about for readers to see in the pages of your book?
LANDRY: Energy. I feel that too many comics these days lack intensity, and that’s something we want to put emphasis on with “Danger Club.”
Continued belowERIC: I’m with Landry on this one. This book is hard, fast and cold-blooded. We really want this one to be an intense experience, and I think we’re hitting the ground running. Once people see the end of the first issue I think they’ll see just how vicious this series is going to be, and the second issue is only going to pick up where that one left off.
I really can’t wait to read it, although now I’m a little afraid of what’s to come at the end. Here’s the official last question: besides “Danger Club”, what are the two of you working on?
LANDRY: Everything takes so long in comics. We have other projects out there that we finished working on some time ago but are only now getting close to public release. As an example, while we were doing this interview I just received my advance copy of “House of Odd”, an original “Odd Thomas” graphic novel that I co-wrote with Dean Koontz, with art by Queenie Chan. I finished writing this over a year ago. Another project that will start being seen by the public soon is the upcoming TV show based on our comics “Little Gloomy” and “The Super Scary Monster Show” — it’s called Scary Larry, and you can see a preview of it on Youtube:
Additionally, I’ve been doing some freelance writing for “Marvel Super Heroes Magazine”, and writing a series of Avengers novels for Disney.
ERIC: I’m working almost exclusively on “Danger Club” these days, other than some freelance work for Disney, and some stuff that Landry and I have brewing that we can’t really talk about just yet.
LANDRY: Yeah, most of our time is spent working on “Danger Club.” This is very much a labor of love, and we’ve been forced to turn down some well-paying jobs to make time for it. We’ve put a lot into this, and we really want to ask readers to contact their local stores right now and ask them to order copies of the book. The FOC (Final Order Cutoff) with Diamond is Monday, March 12th. The second issue is in the current Previews. We need every order we can get — any retailers out there, please give our book a shot. We need your support.
