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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Of Moons Millionares And Mothers Part 4: The Outlaw Scrooge McDuck! Or No, I Didn’t Forget An Episode

Hello all you happy people.. and as you can see by the title no I didn’t forget an episode despite Della’s debut comes before this. It’s kinda important. But Kev who comissioned this retrospective requested I take a look at Della’s appearances in IDW’s tie-in comic first, as it was the only look we got at her personality before her debut, see how it compares, similar to him having me do her only major comic appearance. I was more than fine with that, but it meant due to something I had planned for June I had to shuffle things around a bit episode wise.

See like I did for Goofy last week, to surprising applause from one PATICULAR source for one PATICULAR review

I’m not putting that there to toot my own horn so much as I still can’t believe that fucking happened and have to keep reminding myself.

Point is since Donald is also my boy and I have even more to pull from for him, I naturally decided to give him a weeklong birthday celebration too. And the comics.. just fit too well for that. We never saw Donald before a combination of life beating him down and loosing Della took ALL the fun he did have adventuring out of it for him. We’ve seen him be awesome and adventure, the show gave us plenty of that, if not as much as i’d of liked. But we never saw him at his peak, only at his valley and then his new peak. Kinda like how if you only saw Keanu Reeves in Johnny Mnemonic and John Whick and missed his other peaks with the first two Bill and Teds and Matrix. He was also damn good in Parenthood. Good movie, great tv show, wish he’d made a cameo in the latter. Or Steve Martin, Or Rick Moranis. My point is part of his story there is missing so it felt only right to put the filling of it in his week.

So i’m jumping ahead an episode: this one now, the comics next week, and THEN whatever happened. It dosen’t really wreck the flow of things too badly as this episode dosen’t removely involve Della and her episode while excelent was built to work in isolation, likely so they could slot it wherever needed after christmas.

Okay good. So moving on this episode... the episode came out of the concept for another episode that never happened: Scrooge would tell the kids a story, they’d make revisions and due to some magical mishap of the week they’d end up rewriting history with them. They ended up reworking the basic concept: Scrooge still tells a story to one of the kids, in this case Louie and they kept one or two of the changing up the story gags just in a diffrent context, but the made it more a direct homage to the Princess Bride, a grandfather telling his grandson, both things metaphorically but still, about a story the Grandson has no intrest in and slowly gets invested in as he goes. Did it work? Do I still like this episode? Find out under the cut!

Our story begins at the mansion. Louie is watching Ottoman Empire... which begins a running gag/mini-arc for the season as it turns out Randy has left the show leaving Johnny to his own devices and bitter about the whole thing. For some reason the crew didn’t hire someone else. I mean... personally i’d go with Al Borland. Let him just take over the show.

Scrooge comes in being generous.. well the Scrooge version of generous as he had some misprinted buisness cards and figures Louie can write his company name on them.. which Scrooge has forgot. I’d drag him for this.... but my own short term memory is notoriously shoddy. I take a while to remember peoples names and can sometimes forget what I was just told to do 2 minutes ago. So I won’t be throwing stones in this glass house.

Louie however claims he’s given up. And while Scrooge guesses legit things his latest idea didn’t pan out, a sociopath with a chess motif spent months driving him back to alcoholism, he found out he was a robot and left the company, he had to fake his own death so his scietnests could bring him back to life, you know normal stuff. But no being Louie.. there was like four people at the patent office. To which I laugh as, in getting a new photo ID, I stood for over half an hour socially distanced You suck child.

Jokes aside though I do like this as it’s something we all knew would happen at SOME POINT. Louie has some drive in him.. but his inherent laziness holds him back. Can relate. So of COURSE he’d quit at the first obstacle at some point and it’s a miracle he made it through the entire last episode without bailing.

Frank and Matt did make the wise decision thoguh to NOT make this an entire episode. Louie’s lazy shctick only works in small doses: it’s why this arc and his focus episodes are more focused on his grifting and shortsightedness, with only this one and great dime chase focusing on his laziness.. and even then the latter focuses more on the grift. It NEEDED to be in the arc.. but unlike Louie’s other faults it just isn’t something that’s easy or fun to build an episode around.

So instead Scrooge decides to tell Louie a tale from THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SCROOGE MCDUCK. Speaking of which if Disney is all in on this whole making mini series thing... make a Life and Times series. Either bring Frank back and simply make a version that fits into this continuity, and fills in the gaps we didn’t see, with the easy wraparound of him telling his daughter the full life story from his perspective, or do a straigther adaptation of the comic.. and still bring frank back because come on. The show DID do flashbacks and rather good ones, this one included... but we never got to find out how certain major milestones went and there’s PLENTY of room within what they’ve told already to tell new stories. Plus.. I want to see Hortense dammit. I’m still bitter about that, especially since i’m highly convinced it’s Disney’s fault. I do bring up Life and Times for a reason though as my current retrospective of it just so happens to be in this period of Scrooge’s life: CLOSE to making his fortune in the Klondike, but still a ways off on other gold rushes, though with some key diffrences we’ll get into as we go.

So in this period Scrooge is already hardened, tired of people and untrusting, and still working to make his way square, this time settling in the small town of gumption working his claim. After falling in a rockslide he meets Sheriff Martial Cabrera, who in Life and Times Fashion, is Fenton’s ancestor. This comes out of something Frank always had in mind about Fenton’s history: he comes from two long lines, one of Lawpersons the other of mad scientests, with his career as Gizmoduck being the logical combination of both. I think it’s neat, giving him a rich family history of his own and also neat to have his ancestor be an upstanding POC Dork too.

Marshall is also played by Lin, who does a great job here, not only pulling off a southern accent, but managing to give Marshall simliiarties to fenton, his cheerieness, obliviousness and sense of justice while still making him diffrent, even more naive and far more bound to the law and what society thinks is right. Scrooge naturally hates him, but begrudingly lets the man save his life and shares some beans with him. As it turns out Marshall was inviting Scrooge to the town meeting as Scrooge has largely isolated himself as you’d expect, and he wants his miners to be in on the big shot coming to Gumption to help it. The “Miners” part though is what sticks with Scrooge as he’s been working this claim for some time, and demands to know who the hell thinks they can jump in and cash in on his hard work.

Yeah not a huge suprise to him. Though Louie is upset as he dosen’t want any mushy stuff with ol dpeople While Scrooge as ever denies being attracted to Goldie, which is also as convincing as ever, he also has a valid point that leads to the best line of the episode and what i consider to be Monihan’s best comedic line delivery series-wide Scrooge: We weren’t old then! Louie: It’s impossible to picture you young.

I never fail to laugh at that. Especially since he’s not even being a dick for once it just comes off like a genuine kid reaction. So Scrooge brushes it off. As an aside the two hadn’t even met yet in the comics, but this change, like the other massive one coming up is one I feel still works: since Goldie is scrooge’s rival as much as his lover here, it only makes sense Dawson wasn’t even the first time they met and they have a long history of stabbing each other in the back, something that would later be brilliantly used in “The Forbidden Fountain of The Foreverglades” as it’s backbone and to question if they really could keep going on like this forever. Spoilers they could not.

Louie ends up stopping the story because he dosen’t want prospector talk and we get David Tennant’s own best comedic line reading as he tries to do modern slang. TRIES being the key word. Louie wiselygoes back to the old timey talk.

So the two naturally are at each other’s throats with Goldie having already bought up all the dynamite. So the two spend what’s likely days working at it, Scrooge working hard while Goldie casually tosses explosives around like she’s the Mad Bomber What Bombs at Midnight.

Eventually though Scrooge DOES strike Gold, as does goldie.. the same nugget in fact that’s utterly MASSIVE... and quickly excivated bringing both to the surface and face to the man who stole their hard earned gold, John D. Rockerduck.

Rockerduck is another barks creation, a rich rival of Scrooge’s he only used once, likely because he retired not long after the story. Suprisingly though unlike the MANY, MANY one off villians Scrooge fought Rockerduck caught on and overseas ended up being Scrooge’s arch enemy instead of Glomgold and getting fleshed out in the process, being a younger rival willing to spend. Don Rosa further added contrast by giving him the backstory of coming from a wealthy family in life and times, as opposed to Scrooge and Rockerduck’s own father Roger who worked for every cent they had.

Despite his popularity it still took till this series for Rockerduck to hit animation. Though I CAN see why: with the original series they already had Glomgold and really DIDN’T need him, and Scrooge really didn’t have any major starring roles in the 30 years between series. He didn’t vanish but with Scrooge not being in the drivers seat, there was no reason to bring in a rival let alone a brand new one. By contrast, Fethry, the other major comics only character the series brought in this season, COULD’VE very easily been brought in at any time, as donald both starred in Quack Pack and was one of the stars of House of Mouse/Mouseworks, they just chose not to.

Rockerduck was, like MANY characters in this versoin of the series massively overhauled, only keeping his outfit, background of inerheted welath and smugness: John is now his father’s age during this time period instead of a child, his suit is now white, and given his new time period he now has a unique modus operandi: he goes to small desperate towns like this, buys them up, takes anything of value and then flees on a rail. Despite liking how Rockerdcuk was in the comics.. I do LOVE this reinvention: with Beaks taking up his old spot as a younger rival, Rockerduck needed a new gimmick and having him be a stylish, entitled conman still fits the character like a glove while updating him to better fit the larger rouges gallery this series gives scrooge. It also nicely contrasts him with Scrooge’s modern-ish rival and 80′s/90′s style buisness scumbag glomgold: Both are flashy, are willing to spend tons of money for their schemes and have the common decency of a trump, but while Glomgold is all force , arrogance and ill thought out schemes, Rockerduck is far more cunning, manipulating people and situations with all three of his major roles in the series having carefully thought out plans.. but usually with some glaring hole he didn’t think of due to arrogance versus the 80 holes in Glomgold’s plans he didn’t think of because he simply dosen’t think period.

Rockerduck is also part of an intresting concept by Frank: that Scrooge had a major rival in every era. Rockerduck in the prospecting days, Glomgold in the 80′s and 90′s and Beaks in theory and Bradford in practice in the 2010′s, with likely some other scumbags inbetween we simply never got to meet.

Now I will admit it took time to warm up to this Rockerduck on the whole.. but not because he was bad. Rockerduck is awesome here and John Hodgman, whose always awesome, is unsurpsingly great here, having just the right combo of genuine wit with genuine twit. But it was more “why the FUCK did you strand him in the 1800′s?!”. That last complaint as you all well know ended up evaporating and he returned via shoddy cryogencis for plenty of Season 3 and likely would’ve come back again for Season 4 had it happened, as FOWL outside of BRadford and Heron were still around by the end of the finale, just defeated for now, and likely would’ve simply gone their seperate ways and blended into the Rouge’s gallery.

So Scrooge is naturally pissed while Goldie’s natrually angling to steal the nugget, and Rockerduck explains he bought the town, and thus the mineral is his.. despite Scrooge having a legit claim to it since he found it first. Rockerduck however isn’t impressed and Goldie, in order to try stealing it herself, manipulates the two into a scrap. Scrooge EASILY beats the asshole in a hilarous scene as preppy boxing simply can’t outdue genuine grit and badassery while Jeeves, rockerduck’s butler, catches Goldie. Jeeves is also from the comics and heavily reinvented here, as he’s now an even more massive oddjob from james bond.

Our heroes, well hero and Goldie anyway, end up in Jali as a result since while what Rockerduck did is fucked, like most coproaate assholery it’s technically legal and the person he screwed over thus gets even more screwed over by the law. It’s then .. Johnny shows up as Louie’s watching his show.. and watching some guy get eaten by an ottoman. Oh and frank confirmed he’s dead. I didn’t think i’d see a man get murdered by an ottoman on a children’s cartoon but here we are. After Scrooge forces Louie back into a story he CLEARLY has no intrest in at the moment, Scrooge convinces Goldie to work with him with a valid point: they both equally love gold and hate assholes like Rockerduck. They also find another person in the cell with them, Gyro.. and not an ancestor either, though it would’ve been nice to see Ratchet, this is our Gyro, simply stranded in the past and locked in a cell for what Frank said are charges of sorcerey.

Scrooge of course plans to break out and get his gold back.. with Goldie pointing out MAYBE don’t say that while the guy who put them in the cell is right there. Marshall isn’t really bothered though as Rockerduck’s already on a train with the giant nugget. Gyro ends up bursting Marshall’s bubble: as I mentioned Rockerduck’s modus operandi is swindling small towns of resources and leaving them to die, something Gyro knows since by the president Rockerduck’s reputation of being a fucking asshole is infamous. Marshall takes a second to realize maybe since he’s never heard of Ogdenville or North Haverbrook he really has been conned.

Scrooge, now further inscensed and wanting what’s his, decides to plan a heist. Again time and place. He has a crew with Gyro and Goldie, he just needs to break out.. only for Marshall to voluntarily let the three out and offer his help. When Goldie is understandably skeptical, Marshall points out that his town’s well being and what’s genuinely right is more important than the letter of the law and he’s on board.

So with that Scrooge’s plan begins and naturally it’s a great one: he and Goldie will dress up as high society types and inflitrate Rockerduck’s car to get the keys to the gold, while Gyro and Marshall will use some fancy gizmo Gyro whips up to procure the gold. Goldie is skeptical Scrooge can pass for a rich man and is plesantly suprised and even more pleasantly aroused by his fancy digs and vice versa.

But there’s no time for love Dr. Jones, as Gyro unveils his plan: Rocket Rocking Horses. They’ll use these to get on the train. His plan A was just as cool but also far more of an animal rights violation... by modern standard. By 1800′s rules the only violation nof an animals rights is if you killed it for a reason toher than “tastest good” , “to make stuff”, “It looked at me funny”, “it slept with my wife” or “it tasted good after I shot it for looking at me funny then sleeping with my wife”

So with that our heroes set out to rocket rob a train back to the future part 3 style. Well that involved an 80′s car instead of rocket rocking horses but still, credit someone else actually remembers that movie. So with that Scrooge and Goldie make it on board.

Meanwhile Rockerduck is being exactly as plesant as you’d expect: bragging about the thrill he gets from swindling people, having a guy thrown off for understandbly questniong the human cost and then railing a waiter out for a feather in his soup and for having soup available in the first place. Huh so that’s what people like Tucker Carlson did before they had cable news to lie-scream into. Neat.

Meanwhile Marshall and Gyro prepare their side of the plan but Gyro’s general inablility to get that not everyone, especially a cowboy from a century or two before, is going to get how to work stuff and ends up knocking him out. Marshall does prove to have some of his descendents genius though and quickly cobbles something together to get to the gold on time: STEAMPUNK GIZMODUCK ARMOR. Hell.. yeah. It has a neat design too.

Back at the train Goldie and Scrooge enact a plan on the fly: both sneak in and Scrooge tells her to do what she does best.. leading to her blushing. Goldie he dosen’t want you to peg him in a train car... he didn’t bring the old timey dildo with him. You gotta think. No he wants her to be “an annoying diversoin” and she throws a song together. And HOLY SHIT I forgot Allison Janney could sing, this woman’s talent knows no bounds. So while Goldie kills it, a nod to her saloon routes from the comics, Scrooge takes care of Rockerducks...

Energy to swipe the key. Getting the gold turns out to be more difficult as Jeeves is already there and a fight insues, with the odds evenend once goldie joins in, and our heroes winning out.. for a second anyway, but long enough to get the gold to Marshall. Not long enoug however to escape as Jeeves grabs both mid jump. I do love how Scrooge gets out of this though: He simply uses his head and his own background, pointing out Rockerduck likely dosen’t appricate a working class man with jeeves and offering him the gold chunk. Sure it’s a bribe.. but it’s a well meant one, and one from a man who almost never gives up a dollar for anything, let alone gold. So with that our heroes are released and the most Rockerduck can give out is an “ah dang”. Granted he’d freeze himself so he could fight them again, but there are probably several more adventures before that anyway.

For now our heroes seemingly win... only for the Gizmosuit 0 to short circuit, forcing Marshall out and our heroes off and blowing up the gold.. to Louie’s sorrow as he’s finally getting into it. Turns out though things still worked out: our heroes DID loose the gold as it was.. but the various flakes from the explosion ended up in gumptoin’s river. The town now has a gold rush on it’s hands free from rockerduck. Scrooge and Goldie exchange words, though Goldie exploits the moment between them to whack scrooge on the head. Some things never change.

In the present we find out how it panned out for the two of them, pun intended: Goldie got away with some of the gold of course while Scrooge didn’t find much, but still made off decenly by starting a panning company. But neither were Rich.. and this makes Louie wonder what the point is if getting rich is just an endless moutnain of obstacle and setbacks. Scrooge’s real point was this: that it IS worth the effort, you need to put some in and can’t just give up, and that you have to decide which kind of person you want to be: a conman like rockerduck, a shifty operator like goldie or an honest worker like Scrooge. Gyro then picks then to come back to the present, with Scrooge slowly relaizing “Oh yeah that was Gyro.. kinda obvious in hindsight. “

Scrooge REALLY should’ve thought that speech through as we end our episode with one hell of a sequel hook: Louie caling up Goldie to mentor him.. and her implicitly agreeing because it will defintely tick Scrooge off.

Final Thoughts:

I really like this one. It has great pacing, a neat setting and as always Janney and Tennant have phenominal chemsitry, so giving them another episode opposite each other was a no brainer. It’s a fun old west romp. It’s also good character stuff, with Louie getting his drive back.. but only because he might of found another short cut, and the bits where his talk clashes into the story are inspiried, especially the Scrooge slang bit. Tennant is a masterful voice actor and I hope after this and final space he keeps going with it.

Next Time: Well I already went on about it but we dive into the old school trio’s past comics style. Will it be underwhelming PROBABLY.

Next Time on this Blog: IT’S PRIDE MONTH BITCHES.

If you really enjoyed this review, consdiering becoming a backer RIGHT HERE. Even if you can only kick in a buck it not only helps but gets you access to exclusive reviews, my discord, and to pick a short when I do a shortstacular, my celebration of a character from the theartical short’s day’s birthday. You also help me reach stretch goals: 20 has some duck reviews with monthly darkwing duck reviews and 2 Ducktales mini as well as a brucey bonus Danny Phantom: The Ultimate Enemy review, while 25 will have me reviewing 3 MORE disney movies (The Recess, Proud Family and best Kim Possible Movies), and allow you the backers to pick a review. And the best part is like this review EVERYONE, wether you can afford to pay or not, gets the review. So if you end up liking this review and want more, hop on. And if your consdiering becoming a 5 dollar backer and thus helping meet my next goal automaitcally you not only get a review a month but if there's a reward down the line you'd rather swap one of the current ones for the 20 dollar tier with let me know. If it's within reason i'll gladly do it.

#scrooge mcduck #ducktales #goldie o gilt #john d rockerduck #sheriff martial cabrera #gyro gearloose #louie duck #the old west #of moons moms and millionares

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taiblogcomics · 6 years ago

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Star-Crossed

Hey there, applewood-smoked bacon jerky. Oh boy, we're getting into the really cool Pony comics now. Let's do this one first, mostly because it's so big. Last week was issue 74, and this week would logically be issue 75. Wow, can you imagine 75 whole issues? That's a milestone for sure, and the comic agrees. That's why the issue is an absolutely huge prestige format book. And being IDW's 20th anniversary, too, that makes it really a milestone to celebrate~

Here's the cover. Well, part of it:

Yeah, this is only the front cover. It's actually a wrap-around cover, with the other characters on the back cover. I chose to put only the front half for a couple reasons. One, because putting the back cover on the left while the logo is on the right just didn't look right. Two, you're still not going to see the back cover when it's on the shelf or in a collection. The front cover is the selling point, so that's what we'll look at. And it's a very nice stained-glass look. Rather than betray the story, the cover opts to just celebrate the main characters for its milestone, and that's respectable~

The comic opens with a long-ago battle with Discord. Princesses Celestia and Luna are in resplendant armour, and joined by Queen Novo of the hippogriffs, the cat queen of the Abyssinians, and even that deer king of the Everfree that I don't remember the name of. Everything's going nuts, and the wonderful combination of Andy Price's art and Discord's magic is a treat to look at. However, when confronted, Discord bleats out that "It's not me this time!", and indeed some other being appears on the horizon. Discord and the five monarchs team up and combine their magic (in a display vaguely reminiscent of the Elements of Harmony) to banish this mysterious intruder. The magic and the creature dissipate. When Celestia then demands an explanation from Discord, he puts them all to sleep, saying he can't let anyone remember what happened here. He leaves them an apology cake as well, which is nice.

Cut over to the present day, where the mane six are out at a bazaar or rummage sale of some kind. Rarity's found some sort of necklace, with a stone that not even she nor Twilight can identify. Rarity offers it to Twilight, since the purple matches with her colour scheme, and that's when things get weird. No sooner is it around Twilight's neck does a mysterious voice boom out "FIND THE REST". A voice only she can hear, no less. After a quick reconvening back at the castle, it seems only Twilight can hear the voice, no matter who wears it. Fluttershy is the voice of reason here, suggesting that maybe wearing jewelry that talks to you in a voice nopony else can hear is a bad idea. But that's when the necklace suddenly starts projecting a map. Not just any map, though: it's a star map.

The star map interacts with the Cutie Map in Twilight's castle, showing a projection of the sky and then several objects falling from said sky and impacting with the map of Equestria. There are also a bunch of space-related shout-outs in the star map, and if you recognise them all, you're a bigger nerd than I. Also, the display of the celestial objects impacting Equestria is one of those two-page spreads you have to turn on its side, which is especially difficult with the stiffer prestige-format cover. Anyway, all that aside, Twilight identifies the celestial objects not making Star Trek references as the Andalusian Constellation, a lost constellation that appeared from the sky centuries ago (gonna go out on a limb and guess probably "a thousand years ago"), and then disappeared just as quickly. The origins of both its appearance and disappearance are one of the greatest mysteries in Equestrian astronomy, so Twilight is eager to solve it.

Now, I should note that every time the necklace starts whispering to Twilight, her eyes go a bit... weird. Wobbly and bright pink. So I'm sorry to tell you that everypony's hopes that this will just be a nice, safe adventure about astronomical research are probably going to be dashed rather spectacularly. And indeed, after the rest of her friends depart to make travel plans, Twilight ends up snapping at Spike for daring too close to the necklace, unleashing one of Andy Price's legendary Scary Character Faces, a fan favourite of this blog that we haven't talked about in some time. Once Spike clears out, it is indeed revealed that something's not quite right here. Twilight is being possessed through the necklace by some sort of malevolent entity, one sharing a silhouette and name with the creature banished in the prologue...

Speaking of said prologue, we get another brief scene of probably a thousand years ago, with the same spooky silhouette rampaging. It seems that Discord could even have been in a relationship with this mysterious Cosmos, and now he's looking to break up with her the only way he can think of: by bringing it before Celestia and making it her problem. Real mature, Discord. Anyway, back in the present, the teams and travel plans have all been... planned. Since it's such a big undertaking (both the quest and the milestone comic), there's gonna be some cameo teamups. Pinkie Pie and Big Macintosh will go to Klugetown. Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Spike are off to the Crystal Empire. Zecora and the Crusaders are headed to Griffonstone, while Fluttershy and Angel Bunny are going to scour the Everfree Forest. And finally Twilight herself will take Applejack with her to Canterlot. And when they each recover the fallen stars, bring them back to Twilight. She literally demands it.

We follow that latter team first. Twilight and Applejack ride the train to Canterlot, and Twilight begins to report that her necklace is detecting where the next nearest star fragment is. Despite AJ's concerns, Twilight leads her to the castle. Without even telling the princesses they're there, they head into a secret basement. This is apparently where Celestia stores all the dangerous things she doesn't want lying around the castle, and there's a few more cameos littered in the backgrounds here. The nature of some of this stuff starts to make Applejack even more suspicious, and when she reaches for the necklace, Cosmos drops the facade of being Twilight and attacks AJ. After a short (but really cool) fight, AJ ends up locked in a cage while Cosmos claims her prize.

Since the Everfree Forest is not too far from Fluttershy's place, she has time to stop at home and prepare there, unlike the rest of the teams. Discord's already visiting, and he tries to tempt Fluttershy off to some fantastical adventure. When she explains she's already on one, to find a fallen star, he suddenly begins to panic--especially when he finds out Twilight's already found one of the others. Rather than the Everfree, he warps the both of them to his realm. To Discord's credit, he then tells her exactly what's going on: Cosmos was a magical being like himself, but much more actively malicious. She was imprisoned in the stars, which fell to Equestria to keep them apart. He found the one in the Everfree and hid it himself, to keep it away from anyone else. Fluttershy is understanding, but reasons with him that perhaps they'd better bring the matter to Celestia.

Discord agrees, and the pair retrieve the star from the Everfree, just to further ensure it doesn't fall into the hands of some villain later on. They then warp to Canterlot--Discord's powers really cut down on travel time--where Celestia is waiting for them. Failing their spot check, Twilight grabs the star from them and tosses it to Luna. Now there's three stars, each possessing one of the princesses with a piece of Cosmos' consciousness. Yes, Twilight, Celestia, and Luna are all speaking in unison and getting flirty with Discord. Half of Cosmos being reunited has begun to bring back enough power to start warping the area around them, and Cosmos begins discussing her new takeover with Discord. Discord, however, declines, having reformed since they were last together. Cosmos is deeply displeased to hear he plans to oppose her. So, to distract him, she zaps Fluttershy with some sort of spell to give him something else to worry about, while Cosmos waits for her remaining fragments to return to her...

First of all, congratulations to My Little Pony for reaching 75 issues! It’s very rare to see a comic book reach such a high number nowadays, especially one based on a licensed property. Everyone who’s worked on this series to get it here should be very proud! I’m pretty sure I said the same sort of sentiment fir the 50th issue, and now it’s even more true~

Now then: here’s yet another villain of ages past come to wreak havoc on modern day Equestria, as they so often do. If it was anyone other than Discord, I’m not sure I’d buy the whole memory spell that he used to make them forget the incident, but Discord’s powers can suspend any disbelief. Either way, Cosmos is scary. I know Nightmare Knights just introduced Eris as another sort of “malevolent counterpart to Discord”, but Cosmos sells it way better in her flashback scenes. Additionally, when you finally get to see her in full glory at the end of the issue, she’s way scarier than a big pink anthro bird. And her being able to take over the princesses so easily is highly chilling. Of course, this is also all helped by Andy Price’s art, which continues to knock it out of the park as always~

Whatever she’s up to, we’ll just have to see if the heroes can handle it next issue. I know I’m looking forward to it, and hopefully another 75 more~

#comics #reviews #My Little Pony Friendship is Magic IDW #Taiblog #Cosmos

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transtech-zine · 5 years ago

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Page 05:

Megatron – Tyrant

All Megatron has ever wanted is power. It is his means, his motive, and his goal. It was his thirst for conquest that began a four million year war between the Autobots and the Decepticons. Now, stranded in a future free of tyranny, Megatron seeks to fill that vacuum and continue his reign of terror. Forced to rebuild his army from the ground up, Megatron relies on his tried and true recruitment tactics, making grandiose speeches disguising his despotism as revolution for the oppressed. Though he’s content to use his eager volunteers to make up numbers in his militia, his smooth talking and honeyed words mask his contempt for what he views as the impure Maximal and Predacon races.

It is said that only the strongest may lead the Decepticons, and Megatron certainly lives up to that reputation. His strength and endurance are unmatched, though he relies on Shockwave to handle anything requiring scientific knowledge or mechanical aptitude. Megatron’s signature weapon, his fusion cannon, interdimensionally siphons power from a black hole to fire concentrated bursts of energy. In destroyer tank mode, he can also use two mounted railguns to fire armour-piercing high velocity projectiles.

Starscream – Dogfighter

During the Great War, Starscream was infamous for his boundless treachery. Always openly planning mutiny on his commanders and bullying his subordinates, this Decepticon air commander had no interests in mind but his own. When his duplicity become too much for his leader, Megatron, he was summarily eliminated. But death did not slow him down. Starscream soon discovered that a mutation in his spark left him invulnerable, beyond the limits of a physical body.

Thanks to this newfound ability to separate his consciousness from his corporeal form, Starscream was the only one among his fellow survivors to escape the sealed Millennia Dome. Adrift and alone for countless years, Starscream has had plenty of time to develop his ghostly powers and plot out his revenge for long-held grudges. Starscream rejoins the Decepticons, having been drawn back to Cybertron by the Dome opening. Megatron permits him to stay because his abilities are an asset and his self-importance intimidates the volunteer Decepticons into obedience.

In his material form, Starscream can exceed speeds of Mach 4 and is armed with null rays and shoulder-mounted cluster bombs. His mutations allow him to render his body intangible and invisible; in addition, he can vacate his body to possess and control another Cybertronian.

Shockwave – Scientist

Hypothesis, experiment, data, conclusion. In Shockwave’s eye, the world around him is a science project; his fellow Cybertronians are as specimens under a microscope. His detached manner is no mere scientist’s affectation: Shockwave feels no camaraderie, or anger, or any emotion; he experiences only unfeeling logical reasoning, and dedication to scientific advancement.

His amoral experimentation led him to the Decepticons; he benefits from lack of oversight from the ethics committee, and Megatron benefits from the development of weaponry and technology.

A gifted technogeneticist, Shockwave’s latest creations are the Immorticons, a horde of unstoppable soldier drones built only to obey the commands of their master. Shockwave’s analytical mind grants him a special connection with the Immorticons; he can assume direct control over multiple units at once for the greatest tactical advantage. In person or remotely, his strategies in battle are uninhibited by restraint or retribution; instead, Shockwave clears a warzone with brutal, mechanical efficiency – and a powerful Neuron Beam of his own design.

Though Shockwave’s greatest strength is his unequalled intelligence, his lack of empathy can leave him blindsided by unexpected emotional responses from allies and enemies alike. He is starting to create contingencies to remove these uncertain variables from the equation…

I struggled getting started on Megatron’s profile. Those first two sentences are cribbed from the box of his GDO toy, and I used them to springboard myself into the rest of the bio. It is important to remind you at this stage that Transtech came out in 2001, and that any resemblance to the modern day political landscape is surely coincidental.

For Megatron’s head, I wanted to keep the general outline of the Transtech concept art and match it with the Sunbow Megatron’s face. The two inscribed M’s on his forehead nod to IDW’s stealth bomber Megatron.

Starscream’s bio here is a bit of a tiptoe through continuity to try and make everything fit in Beast Wars’ established timeline. Being eliminated for his duplicity is supposed to infer his death at Galvatron’s hands during The Transformers: The Movie. By the character’s exit from the Sunbow cartoon in “Ghost in the Machine”, he has been restored to a corporeal body, but in his next appearance in Beast Wars’ “Possession”, he’s just a spark again. Transtech’s backstory, set between these episodes, reconciles this, with his physical form trapped in the Millennia Dome, but his spark being free. After going through transwarp space to reach the Beast Wars era, Starscream is forced to wait 180,000 years to return to his body.

Starscream’s headshot here is based on his Transtech toy hardcopy, minus its mouthplate, but plus a Saren Stone catsmile.

The first portion of Shockwave’s profile is probably my finest bit of prose in this zine, as it really evokes Shockwave’s alien morality and disregard for the people around him.

Starscream aside, Optimus’ resignation and Megatron’s black hole weapon suggest a Marvel Comics G1 history, but Shockwave’s treacherous ambitions are the most overt holdover. As Chris McFeely will tell you, neither major G1 Shockwave was a scientist, with Dreamwave bringing that aspect into his character. Let’s make like Transtech did it first, and Dreamwave copied it. Shockwave’s Neuron Beam takes its name from his handgun in the Siege toyline.

Shockwave’s design plays with his concept art, making certain details resemble bug mandibles and adding circuit patterns to his antennae. His triangular eye is a deliberately edgy departure from his classic appearance, but note how the surrounding area is still an irregular hexagon. Both Shockwave’s and Megatron’s art on this page were only half drawn, then mirror flipped down the middle.

#Transformers #Transtech

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thenightling · 7 years ago

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Changing my Comic Book “religion.”

Marvel crossed a line for me relatively recently.

I have had enough of them downplaying the supernatural side of their canon and reducing it to nothing more than bad pseudoscience in the MCU. The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was the treatment of the Darkhold as nothing more than “Alien tech” on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D combined with reducing Doctor Strange’s powers to little more than echoes of the infinity stones... The Doctor Strange 2008 animated movie was more respectful to the original power range and spell casting.

And it’s just wrong to have the likes of Odin say “We are not Gods!’ Frigga’s death doesn’t even make sense. Why does her son survive a stabbing with no problem but a simple stab wound kills her? Even if they “aren’t Gods” (which is infuriatingly offensive to what Jack Kirby wanted) they are supposed to be stronger than human, right?

Now compound that disappointment with the fact that Marvel only acknowledges it’s supernatural characters and stories as “Halloween events”. When Dracula used to appear in comics all year, we now get Tomb of Dracula reprinted for Halloween... and that’s about it...

The last time the Legion of Monsters characters appeared or Marvel’s Frankenstein Monster it was so badly done that they were practically props in a S.H.I.E.L.D comic and all the characters treated them as simple minded (and they were written as simple minded). Coulson had them controlled via “Simple command” from an ESPer. The wttiers don’t even remember that the Frankenstein Monster of 616 continuity has the literary backstory and should be articulate. Hell, they don’t even remember that Living Mummy used to be a very articulate sorcerer. Now the only on that talks is the one that shouldn’t. The formerly-mute Man-Thing now treated as comic relief and “Going Hollywood” being written by R. L. Stine and I usually like R. L. Stine.

And Marvel comics has given away all the famous character roles right down to Thor’s very name. Newsflash: The Hammer didn’t name him!

Writing like THIS does not make me feel “empowered.” It makes me feel pandered toward...

First you have this villainess surrendering in the name of solidarity and girl power. Okay, fine. But WHY does Jane-Thor still feel the need to hit her “rather hard” while she’s surrendering? You can see blood coming from her mouth. She just surrendered. WHY!?? This is not empowerment. This is ABUSE of power. It’s dishonorable to hit someone who has surrendered. This does not make me feel strong. This makes me feel disgust. She. Surrendered. Batman doesn’t even punch The Riddler if he has already surrendered.

And here, this doesn’t even feel real. The “censored” content feels like a lazy mockery of Social Justice Warrior mindsets. It’s condescending.

And the God-awful event after event after event like this crappy Secret Empire that even Squirrel girl is mocking in her own comics...

The only saving grace in Marvel comics is that they ARE re-releasing Tomb of Dracula (Though a bit over priced) as a “Halloween event” because they seem to think they can’t have any Gothic stories unless it’s a holiday decoration. And Loki. Vote Loki was fun (but deserved better artwork).

But back to the loss of the supernatural content...

DC releases Justice League Dark animated movie in February on DVD, Blu Ray and streaming while Marvel releases Hulk: Where Monsters dwell as a Halloween special only for streaming...

DC has Oliver Queen in Arrow try to learn light magick while Marvel has Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D try to science-away The Darkhold. DC gives us Lucifer from it’s adult line of comics (Vertigo) while Marvel plays it safe with Inhumans.

DC gives us Constantine in live action TV even after his 2005 movie was terrible and when that doesn’t work they give him an animated incarnation. Marvel ...uses Doctor Strange in a direct to Streaming Holiday special...

Marvel might as well paraphrase Hocus Pocus. “Witches? There be no witches here! We’re just three kindly interdimensional beings sucking the noncorporeal psychokinetic- er.... make that electromagnetic, sorry, that was too supernatural sounding- dis corporate consciousness out of under-pubescent humanoid lifeforms.” Is that science enough for you, China?!

The very reason I got into Marvel in the 90s was because at the time THEY were the ones embracing their supernatural side while DC was just busy killing Superman again (And this time with a holographic cover!) At the time Marvel had such titles as Morbius: The Living Vampire, Blade: The Vampire Hunter, Night Stalkers, The Midnight Sons, ect... And on Fox Kids Blade was appearing in Spider-man the animated series for repeated appearances (not just on Halloween).

As someone who loved the Gothic side of Marvel I feel betrayed by their recent behavior. So, I have changed my “religion.”

Reading Sandman finally was like seeing the light...

“Why, yes, albino ‘Not-Morpheus’ I do accept Superman as my Lord and Savior.” (Dlsclaimer: No, I don’t.)

I will always love things like Legion of Monsters and Tomb of Dracula but until Marvel stops treating their occult and Gothic side as nothing more than Halloween novelties to be swept away come November, I may only visit Marvel for the sake of my beloved Mischief God. For now I’m sticking to DC and the occasional IDW. And yes, I know I can like both DC and Marvel. But with Marvel’s behavior and my tastes do I really want to?

#DC #Marvel #Marvel Comics #DC Comics #Sandman #The Sandman

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mrmedia · 8 years ago

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1306 Gary Chaloner, comic book artist, "Will Eisner's John Law"

Today's Guest: Gary Chaloner, comic book artist, Will Eisner's John Law

(EDITOR'S NOTE: The following interview with comic book artist Gary Chaloner was recorded on August 25, 2006 to supplement my authorized biography of the late Will Eisner, Will Eisner: A Spirited Life. I recently rediscovered the audio file and decided to add it to the Mr. Media podcast archive. -- Bob Andelman)

"Will Eisner's John Law" by Gary Chaloner

Gary Chaloner is an award-winning artist and writer who is currently creating and publishing the new adventures of Will Eisner’s John Law. I interviewed Chaloner via email the first time around, for my biography of Will Eisner, A Spirited Life. But that was when John Law had yet to be published. Now that it’s out and building an audience for one of Eisner’s lesser known characters, I thought it would be fun to talk to him again. He suggested we do it via Skype, the free Internet phone service; being a new technology junkie, I had to say yes. So Gary has the dubious honor of being the first person interviewed in this series via podcast. The audio quality isn't perfect; the hum/buzz you'll hear in the background is from my computer. Sorry about that, audiophiles. This interview combines the stories behind Chaloner's Eisner-related work as well as a sneak peek (below) at his upcoming work. Eisner fans will also be excited to learn how many more characters from Eisner's early work are returning to action in Chaloner's John Law series. First, let me tell you a little more about Chaloner: He’s an Australian-born creator who began his career as a publisher of his own work and the work of other Australian creators through his own imprint Cyclone Comics. Cyclone published a range of popular comic books in the 1980s and 1990s with titles as diverse as The Jackaroo, The Southern Squadron, Dark Nebula, GI Joe Australia, Flash Damingo and CCQ (Cyclone Comics Quarterly). Gary's overseas work includes US editions of The Jackaroo and The Southern Squadron; a very odd issue of The Badger with Mike Baron; the award-winning Planet of the Apes: Urchak's Folly; The Olympians, a two-issue prestige series for Marvel/Epic Comics; editorial and creative duties on Dark Horse Down Under for Dark Horse Comics — this series featured the first US appearance of Gary's creation "Morton Stone, Undertaker." His current creator-owned projects include the black comedy of Morton Stone: Undertaker; Red Kelso, a pulp-inspired adventure series; and new adventures of The Jackaroo. Chaloner worked closely with Will Eisner in the development and relaunch of Will Eisner's John Law both online and in print through IDW Publishing.

Gary Chaloner

The online series recently left ModernTales.com and set up home at http://johnlaw.us.com. You can browse through the archives for free there and read more about Law and his new adventures. As a bonus, Chaloner is uploading original golden age stories featuring Lady Luck and Mr. Mystic. These stories first ran as backups in The Spirit Section and will be remastered and colored for online viewing. Hopefully, these classic stories will be collected for print at a later stage. In the 2005 Ledger Awards (Australian Comic Industry Awards), Will Eisner's John Law received several awards including "International Title of the Year" and "Single Issue or Story of the Year." Chaloner was also awarded the "Ledger of Honour" (a Hall of Fame award) and received industry awards for "Achievement of the Year," "Cover Artist of the Year" and "Inker of the Year." Chaloner also redesign and modernized the official Will Eisner web site.

Gary Chaloner Website • Facebook • Twitter • Wikipedia • Goodreads

BOB ANDELMAN: Gary, let’s jump in here. Tell us a little bit about John Law and how and when Will Eisner created it. GARY CHALONER: Well, hello to everyone. Hi, Bob. John Law was devised and created by Will back in the mid to late ‘40s. The Spirit was going very well, and Will wanted to expand his range of publications on the newsstand. He developed several titles, one of them being the John Law character, but the first one that he released I think was Baseball Comics, and it didn’t go as well as he would have liked, so the other ideas that he had were put on the shelf for a while. Will, being the frugal person that he was, utilized (inaudible) more artwork and converted it into Spirit stories. So all those stories didn’t see print as Spirit stories until about 1950. So the John Law material was a fully formed concept that he had been thinking about quite a while, for several years, and so that whole idea was a bit stillborn, so when the opportunity came along when I talked to Will and Denis Kitchen about developing the series wasn’t just a dead concept, it was a fully developed, ready-to-go set of characters in the universe that Will had already worked on and established, so that was irresistible.

GARY CHALONER podcast excerpt: "If you learn a bit about The Spirit, you also learn about these aborted characters that Will tried to publish back in the ‘40s. The name 'John Law' keeps on popping up as this parallel Spirit character, so it was only through reading about Will’s past and the different things that he tried in the ‘40s that this recurring name 'John Law' and the characters surround him, like Nubbin, The Shoeshine Boy, and Melba, Girl Detective, and a few other characters, had always stuck in the back of my mind as something that, why doesn’t someone do something with these things."

ANDELMAN: Was John Law ever published in the ‘50s or not? CHALONER: No, it was not. All of the work was adapted and absorbed into the Spirit universe. John Law in his own environment wasn’t published until the ‘80s in the Eclipse Comics edition. ANDELMAN: That was Dean Mullaney and Cat Yronwode. CHALONER: That’s correct. Yes. What I did there was, they stripped back a lot of the paste overs and art changes that Will had made to the original art to reveal the original John Law art underneath.

Will Eisner's "The Spirit" as interopreted by Gary Chaloner

ANDELMAN: How did you first hear of John Law? CHALONER: Well, being an Eisner reader for many years and bumping into a lot of the publications that Kitchen Sink first released and that other publications had written about Will Eisner, if you learn a bit about The Spirit, you also learn about these aborted characters that Will tried to publish back in the ‘40s. The name “John Law” keeps on popping up as this parallel Spirit character, so it was only through reading about Will’s past and the different things that he tried in the ‘40s that this recurring name “John Law” and the characters surround him, like Nubbin, The Shoeshine Boy, and Melba, Girl Detective, and a few other characters, had always stuck in the back of my mind as something that, why doesn’t someone do something with these things. A future John Law cover featuring Law and Melba, in a situation inspired by an earlier Eisner piece. ANDELMAN: Whose idea was it that you do this? Was it yours, or was it Denis’? Was it Will? CHALONER: It was pretty much my idea. I approached Denis about it. This is after The Spirit: The New Adventures was cancelled, and I had to produce a story for that, and this was also at a time when Kitchen Sink Press had gone belly up. Denis was going through a few hard times himself, and I had gotten in touch with him, and the relationship developed from there. Well, if The New Adventures had gone beyond issue No. 8, I had to do something else, and the John Law character was always at the back of my mind for me to develop. ANDELMAN: When you did work for The Spirit: The New Adventures, you completed a story that didn’t see print. CHALONER: That’s right. That was going to be in issue nine, and the series ended with issue No. 8. ANDELMAN: And, of course, one of the great ironies here is that, and you have kind of hinted at it, is that Will had done John Law in the late ‘40s or early ‘50s, I guess late ‘40s, and when that did not take off, he adapted the John Law story into The Spirit, because he never wasted anything, and then you, following that same thing many years later, you did a Spirit story, and you adapted it to John Law. CHALONER: I thought it was perfect. The planets were in alignment, really. ANDELMAN: How hard did you have to convince Will to let this happen? CHALONER: Not hard at all, really, not from the creative side. Interestingly, as a John Law project, it wasn’t always intended to initially be presented on the web, and that side of the project interested Will a lot. He was used to emailing and things like that, but he wasn’t really the full expert on web comics and how to deliver something on the Net, so it was all new technology to him. There was a steep learning curve for him as far as being part and parcel of the present Law stories. Another future John Law cover, this time featuring another Eisner creation, Lady Luck. Luck and Mystic feature in the new Law adventures. ANDELMAN: Will was not savvy as far as the Internet went. How did you explain to him the business model behind this? CHALONER: I did the best I could based on the business models that were around at the time, and at the time, Modern Tales was just starting and had been around for several months. It had the business model of the subscription base, where people paid “X” amount of dollars a month or a year to get access to the comics behind the subscriber wall. That kind of logic Will could understand quite easily, the whole idea of magazines having subscriber lists and things like that. It was quite easy for him to understand the logic behind the business of the Internet. The actual technical side of how to, of scanning artwork, color, you had to upload it to the site, that kind of stuff was initially probably a bit of a struggle for him, but he wasn’t a stupid man, so he caught on real quick. ANDELMAN: That’s interesting you mention that. So you are drawing by hand on paper as opposed to using, you are not drawing right into the computer? CHALONER: No. I color or graytone on the computer, but everything else is traditionally done. ANDELMAN: How interesting. I have wondered about that when I have seen the work. CHALONER: Yes, yes. ANDELMAN: Did Will give you any particular input as you were getting started on what he liked, what he didn’t like? CHALONER: Oh, yes, he did, actually. He was very hands-off as far as allowing me to do what I wanted, how I wanted it, but my ideas very much fitted with what he wanted, anyway, so we were running parallel with our thinking. There were several times where he did suggest storytelling changes as far as the structure of the story, panel layouts, visual storytelling, things like that, but the overall direction of the strip, the way the setting for the series, what the characters were all about, he basically left that up to me. I was always using his guidelines from the original 1940s stories.

ANDELMAN: I remember Alan Moore telling me that when he did the story that he did for The Spirit: The New Adventures, that Will told Alan not to make The Spirit a drug addict, among other things. And Alan, of course, was like, “What, me? I wouldn’t do that!” What rules did he lay down for John Law with you? CHALONER: The one that stands out above all else was that he said Law is human. That’s about the only thing that he said that was really the spirit of Law, excuse the pun. He didn’t want the stories to go off into any kind of ridiculous directions, and he just said, “Keep the stories human.” ANDELMAN: For someone who hasn’t seen John Law, first of all, how would you describe the difference between John Law and the Spirit? CHALONER: Well, I would say that the John Law character as a man is a lot more serious than Denny Colt in the Spirit character, so the stories tend to reflect that. There is still humor in there with characters like Nubbin The Shoeshine Boy and several of the other supporting cast members, but the character of John Law himself is a little more serious and less flippant than Denny Colt in The Spirit. This isn’t something that I necessarily planned, actually, because most of my other work I consider to have a certain amount of likeness about it and a sense of humor about it. It’s just when the stories have been produced with the John Law that the stories are draped with a sense of drama instead of humor, or that’s the way I see it, anyway. ANDELMAN: Both characters have sidekicks, however.

"The Phantom Down Under" by Gary Chaloner

CHALONER: Yes. A favorite of Will’s. ANDELMAN: Yes. Now, I gather that Nubbin is less controversial than Ebony? CHALONER: Well, Nubbin’s a drug addict and male prostitute. No, he’s not. He’s not! He walks the street at night. Nubbin’s your dyed-in-the-wool sidekick, comedy relief, a very resourceful street kid and orphan who attaches himself to John Law and also being a boy hanging around a large metropolitan police station, there’s plenty of shoes to shine for his business. So he’s very smart and resourceful as well. ANDELMAN: And how does John Law do with the ladies? CHALONER: Well, he’s had a rough history with the ladies, which is all reflected in stories that are being told, so he has had several loves of his life, and he is still trying to find “miss right,” which I actually do have planned out. A great love of his life is coming into his life very shortly, actually. So he has had a rough past, but he is going to have a fairly sweet future. ANDELMAN: The series began on Modern Tales online, but it has kind of evolved since then, has it not? CHALONER: Yes, it has. Yeah. The core of the delivery system for the stories will always be the web, and a new part of that is going to be that I am redesigning the John Law website together with the new Will Eisner.com website, as well, so it will be a functioning part of the new Will Eisner site. These stories online will always be the basis of any stories I develop in the future. ANDELMAN: The John Law stories have also appeared in print since then, too. CHALONER: Yes, that’s right. Yes. There has been a nice beautiful edition by IDW in December 2004, and it was received very well by critics and fans, and there is a new series that is in development now. The first issue has been released. The rest of the series will be coming along shortly. ANDELMAN: So it will be a regularly scheduled series in print? CHALONER: These will be a limited series, so they will be like self-contained stories. ANDELMAN: Will these be collections from the online, or will these be specially done for print? CHALONER: Originally, I had planned the materials to be in print exclusive, but with my scheduling at the moment with the Will Eisner site and the workload, I decided to run the material online, and then once that is done, collected in print. ANDELMAN: I have to ask, because this is something I am always curious about, is the John Law character and the online and the print editions, is it profitable for you to work on?

"Betty Paginated" by Gary Chaloner

CHALONER: The online material -- there has always been a huge question on that stuff: how do you make money from the Internet? This is part and parcel of my challenge in developing the Law project online in the way so it will generate a solid income for myself and for the Will Eisner estate. I haven’t found the answers to it yet, but this next phase of the development of the strip will hopefully provide some answers as far as new merchandising, advertising support, and things like that that will help raise more money via the internet. ANDELMAN: Have you officially licensed the character from the estate, or do you pay them a royalty, or…. CHALONER: I am basically work-for-hire for all intents and purposes. Any monies that are generated, a percentage goes to the estate, and the rest comes to me. I work very closely with different facets of the license for the project with Denis and with Carl Gropper, who is now running the estate. So if there is any facet of the business side of the Law project, it always goes past him first so that I don’t get myself into trouble. We don’t want that. ANDELMAN: No, we would not want that. Now, you mentioned in the conversation that you are involved with the WillEisner.com site. Tell us a little bit about that. When did you get involved, and what will you be doing there, what are you doing there? CHALONER: Well, it’s a total overhaul of the site. The web site had been lying dormant for quite a while, and it was, from what I can assume, the first part of a larger project from the people that had first established the site for Will. Will, of course, is one of the hugest names in comics. Therefore, my approach to his site was something that reflects his stature and also the amount and body of work that he produced over the years. Now, the Will Eisner Studio as a business entity also has work surrounding or evolving Will Eisner projects going off into the future, so the site will also reflect future projects like the new Spirit title coming from DC, trade paperbacks and book collections of Will’s work coming out from other publishers. So not only will the site reflect Will’s past legacy of work but also the things that are happening in the future, like John Law, a set of instructional books that Will produced or will have published since his death, and future editions of his old material. So it is a totally expanded site. It will feature forums, it will feature a very expanded library area, it will feature the John Law area, as well, so it will be a highly expanded and a lot more interactive site to reflect Will’s legacy. ANDELMAN: Gary, before we kind of wrap up, what else are you working on these days?

"Unmasked" by Gary Chaloner

CHALONER: Well, on the short term, I am just really concentrating on the John Law project and getting the Will Eisner site finished. They are my two major things at the moment, and just last weekend, I sat down and reviewed my notes for John Law, and I think that will keep me busy for the next five or ten years if things go well for the project. I do have a couple of individual projects, personal projects on the side, but they really do have to take a back seat to the John Law project at the moment. There is a Jackaroo series which might be recollected for the American market. I am waiting just to get some contracts in line for that. The Undertaker character might be seeing some sort of life online over the next months, as well, but that will only happen if my scheduling works out with the Law project. ANDELMAN: Gary, I am just curious. How different or in what ways is the Australian comics market different from the American market? CHALONER: Well, it has no backbone structure of a direct market distribution system, for a start, so a lot of the publishers down here, they have to decide whether they are going to self-publish and self-distribute through the internet, whether they hook into the overseas distribution system, like Diamond, or whether they think up some other magazine marketing distribution method for their title, so it has always been a bit of a hard thing down here. I have also noticed over the last 20, 30 years of Australian comics that the creative voice is quite a strong one, and the voice is one of, what’s the word I am looking for? There isn’t a superhero voice down here, there isn’t a crime voice. There are so many different subjects and variety of material being produced down here that you could pick 20 different comics and not two of them be the same. It’s total diversity. I think that is the word I am looking for. The subject matter down here is so diverse, and that is its strength as well as its weakness, because you can’t really get a pool of marketing together with several titles working together to help market themselves. ANDELMAN: Do you think that there will ever be an Australian title that will break through the American market? CHALONER: Yeah, I think there will be, actually. There are some amazing comics being produced by Australians down here, and there are a lot of Australian creators working big time over in the States at the moment, so again, there are two ways where Australian creators can go. They can be a creative force, like Platinum Brick, which is absolutely amazing. That is a web-based comic at the moment, Platinumbrick.com, but it also produces trade paperback collections on the web, relying heavily on Internet presence and word of mouth because it’s such a good comic. ANDELMAN: Well, Gary, you have been very gracious and kind with your time and, of course, your technical know-how, without which we would not have gotten this far, and only you and I will know how difficult this has been. CHALONER: This is true. I am standing on my roof holding the TV antenna and my left foot out! ANDELMAN: I think we all have a good picture of that now. Maybe you could get your wife to snap a picture of that, and we could put that up on the web site. CHALONER: Wait until I get some clothes on. ANDELMAN: Now you’ve ruined the whole thing. Gary, thank you very, very much for your time. CHALONER: It’s been a pleasure.

Order Will Eisner: A Spirited Life (2nd Edition) by Bob Andelman, available from Amazon.com by clicking on the book cover above!

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