What I'm Reading

Hey gang. Just wanted to do a quick rundown of what I've been reading lately. While I'm still doing monthly titles, I've scaled back the amount I'm reading considerably. Going for quality over quantity, I guess you'd say. I suppose I'm suffering from event fatigue, but I just can't be bothered to keep up with Blackest Night or Siege right now. I've even scaled back the amount of Bat-books I'm reading to two; Batman & Robin and Detective Comics.

I've been reading a lot of collections lately. Mainly stuff that I hadn't got around to yet but had been curious about for a while. Chief amongst those titles is James Robinson's Starman. I'm shocked it's taken me this long to read this series. I'm about halfway through his run on the book and it's absolutely blowing me away. I'm so impressed with it that I'm having a hard time reconciling the James Robinson I know now (Cry For Justice is one of the worst things I've ever read) with the James Robinson who created Jack Knight. It hardly seems like its the same man. His grasp of Golden Age and Silver Age tropes and his decidedly human take on the world of superheroes is refreshing and inspiring even now. He fully inhabits each and every character with original voice and in Jack Knight and The Shade, creates two of the most enigmatic and engaging characters I've ever read. If you can write a character so well that I, as a writer, salivate over the idea of writing that same character, then you've done well. (If you're wondering, the character I'm talking about is The Shade. Egads, what a badass he is.)

I just finished the first two volumes of Brian Wood's Northlanders. It's hard to say, "This is the best book at Vertigo," because there are some really great books coming out of that imprint right now. Still, Northlanders has to be considered in that conversation. It takes the gritty, visceral crime drama of something like Scalped and marries it to the playful historical interpretation of a series like Deadwood to create a series wholly unique in the world of comics. Wood's exploration of one of, if not the most pivotal moments in history is an absolute must read. (CLICHE ALERT!)

I also just finished The Escapists by Brian K. Vaughan, a man who is quickly rising to the top of my creative influences list. The Escapists, if you're unfamiliar, is something of a sequel to Michael Chabon's excellent The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay. The book deals with a group of young creators purchasing the rights to the Joe Kavalier and Sammy Klay character, The Escapist. These young creators then embark on a story of sacrifice, creation, love and loss that both twists and uplifts the heart at the same time. The Escapists reads like a guide on what to expect when trying to break into the comic book industry and is essential reading for any creator trying to do just that.

Last but certainly not least, I'm brushing up on my Jeff Parker in anticipation of the interview I have coming up with him sometime in the near future. I'm finishing up Agents of Atlas (phenomenal) then moving on to Mysterius and Interman. Parker is truly one of the nicest and most talented guys in comics and his continued success will be nothing but a boon for the industry. His playful utilization of old pulp tropes turns the medium on its ear while still being as reverent as possible. Agents of Atlas is truly great stuff and is the Marvel equivalent of great DC titles like Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier and James Robinson's The Golden Age. If you haven't checked out Jeff Parker then you're seriously missing out.

That's what's on the pile for now. What are my fellow nerds consuming right now? Inquiring minds want to know.

An Interesting Idea

This article by Erik Larsen appeared on Comic Book Resources this week and I think it warrants some discussion. I won't recount the entire article here, but the gist is, Larsen believes a combination of the delivery methods of Japanese manga and European books such as 2000 A.D. could offer a way to sustain the direct market into the future. We all know that digital is the wave of the future, but what is the transition between the crest of that wave and the fall of the current one? Do we simply limp along with the direct market functioning as is, or would it behoove the industry to explore another option to make print a more viable method of delivery as we transition into a more digital format? It's a topic worthy of some discussion.

In his piece, Larsen argues that weekly or bi-weekly anthologies by the Big Two (Marvel, DC) featuring an entire family of characters, printed with more care and better materials than the current monthly titles and featuring a $5.95 price point would be more appealing to chain bookstores and newsstands and would therefore be more capable of building a large and sustained audience of new readers. Like I said, I won't plagiarize his entire article. I want you to read it and form your own opinions. But it does bear taking note of. One of the most interesting aspects of his theory is the room it would give less successful titles to grow, given that they would be tacked on to more successful books. For instance, Jeff Parker's Agents of Atlas might have a much larger audience and therefore would still be being published today if it were grafted onto the back of a larger Avengers anthology each week.

Where I think the delivery method could work extremely well is in comics for children and young adults. Anyone who knows me thinks that the way Marvel and DC run their kids lines leaves a lot to be desired. While there is some merit to certain books in those lines, for the most part they're just a mish-mash of one-off stories and licensed properties. While they're fun for kids who are already relatively familiar with the characters, they do little to build involved, ongoing storylines and therefore do little to build a young new audience. Without a sizable group of young people interested in these iconic stories, comics will continue to become a medium largely geared toward men aged 18-35. If you're in that age group, you get some great books, but there's not a lot for anyone on the edges these days. Not, at least, from the Big Two.

But consider if Larsen's ideas were implemented in the kids comics lines. What if you had an anthology each week, say in the vein of the WB's successful Animated Series, that featured the entire Batman family. You get a Batman feature, a Nightwing feature, a Batgirl feature, so on, so forth, each with its own ongoing story. Plus, in a format like that, you could easily cross the titles over without feeling like you were just fleecing the fans for all they were worth. Which, lets be honest, is how we all feel at times when we hear the announcement of another "big event." I'm not sure about you, but I think if you gave kids a nicely bound, 64-page Superman comic with ALL the Super-family involved and asked them just $5.95 for it, you'd have kids forking over that lawnmowing money for comics for the first time in years.

Perhaps its just wishful thinking on my part, but like I said before, it bears consideration.

What I'm Working On

Hello fearless readers. Just here to give you an update on the different things I'm working on right now. I got that position with Broken Frontier so you'll see a lot of links to content over there here at the blog pretty soon. I'll be blogging for them as well as doing spot interviews with creators and other industry types about breaking news in the comic world. Fear not, for Surfing the Bleed will continue with the same mission statement as always. I'll still be doing some reviews, talking to creators about breaking in, and throwing the occasional rant in as well.

My first assignment for Broken Frontier was an interview with Emerald City Comic-Con organizer Jim Demonakos. I enjoyed coming up with the questions for Jim, though I must admit to an ulterior motive. Some of the questions were definitely aimed at getting to the heart of what it takes to build a successful con, partially because I'm quite interested in doing the very same thing here in Nashville. Think what you will, but we actually have a good comic culture in and around the city and the relative proximity of Nashville to other major Eastern and Midwestern cities makes it an ideal location for a comic convention. We have a small convention each year, but really it's just an excuse for Eric Powell to go sign some autographs. It's not going to draw anyone from out of town.

I've got a couple of irons in the fire as far as my projects are concerned as well. Over the past two weeks I have met two possible collaborators who are very enthusiastic about the prospect of working with me. I've tasked one with coming up with character designs for the Wendigo project which I hope to someday pitch to BOOM! and the other with Aces Wild, my pulp adventure send-up. Neither one of them has worked in comics before but they are both talented illustrators with a love of the medium, so hopefully with the right guidance things will work out swimmingly.

I have to say I'm extremely excited about the prospect of working on Aces. It's the project I've been sitting on the longest and one that's very dear to my heart. It's one of the only good things to come out of a pretty toxic relationship from my past and I'm glad to be working on it again. If you've read the blog you also know that I'm a huge fan of the old pulp stories and to be adding my own take to that rich tapestry is very exciting. I hope that it works out.

In other news, I had another phone conversation with a certain editor at DC about a set of young adult novels I'm pitching to their licensed publishing division. Given that things are extremely tentative right now and are still in their infancy, I'd rather not go into any more detail. Just know that this guy is in my corner and may be the nicest man in the entire comics industry, which is saying a lot. If we can get it done we will.

As I said in my previous post, you can also expect some new interviews in the new year, including cartoonist extraordinaire Danielle Corsetto and Agents of Atlas writer Jeff Parker.

Currently I'm working on fleshing out the history of my superhero world so I'm going to get back to that. I hope all of your projects and your lives are going well so far in the new year!

I'm Back!

As those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook probably know by now, my crappy old laptop finally kicked the bucket. Luckily I had the only stuff on it of importance backed up, so I didn't lose too much. I have a nice, new laptop with the ever-so-streamlined joy that is Windows 7 and I'm back on the creative horse.

The other reason I've remained absent of late is my attempt to get used to my new schedule. I've started working again, as a barback and door guy, at a bar here in the neighborhood. I like the job, but the overnight schedule has taken some getting used to. Couple that with the fact that I had to cover a bunch of extra shifts so the other barback could go home to Cali for the holidays and you have a recipe for creative ennui.

But fear not reader, as I have some exciting new prospects lined up for the new year. I'm on the brink of accepting a job doing interviews and feature writing for an up and coming comics site, I've got upcoming interviews with the Agents of Atlas and Thunderbolts writer Jeff Parker, cartoonist Danielle Corsetto, lead singer of Art Brut Eddie Argos and a special guest that I'm not entirely at liberty to talk about yet.

On top of that I'm working on a couple of pitches, one of which involves an editor who is the nicest man in comics and a story centered around the lost years of my favorite character of all time.

2009 was a heck of a year for me. I made great strides in my career, I found a job that I like, I got married. Here's to 2010 being the next great step forward. Happy New Year!

My Favorite Comics of the Past Decade

With the end of the decade looming, many comics bloggers around the net are taking the time to put together their "Best of the Decade" lists. All of their lists were different and all of them were contentious. So, in keeping with the current, I decided to make my own list. But upon sitting down to do it, I found myself utterly bored with the idea of trying to explain to all of you why such and such comic was more important, resonant, blah, blah, blah than the next. I just wanted to write something from my vantage point as a fan, not a critic, so what you have instead of a "Best Of..." is a "Favorite Of..." list. I hope you enjoy it, I hope that some of you agree with it, and maybe it will inspire those of you not familiar with these books to go check them out. Happy Holidays and here's to a great new year and new decade!

All Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely


What can be said about All Star Superman that hasn't already been said? Perhaps no two creators have had more success as a pair than Morrison and Quitely, and All Star Superman marks the pinnacle of that success. The definitive story for the definitive hero, All Star Superman provides the Man of Steel with a story worthy of his legend. Applying some of the same principles of storytelling to Supes that Alan Moore used to such great effect on Tom Strong, Morrison gave us a version of the hero more human than any other, a primary colored everyman able to solve problems not with his great physical strength, but with his towering intellect and his capacity for compassion. Even when he is laid low by his longtime enemy, Superman never resorts to hatred or fear mongering. He accepts what he is and knows that, no matter how bleak things may be, in the end there is always hope. All of this is of course beautifully rendered by Frank Quitely, whose art on the book showed a softness that his work had previously lacked. All Star Superman is, in my opinion, the best comic of the aughts.

DC: The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke with Dave Stewart and J. Bone


Darwyn Cooke's account of the transition from the Golden Age to the Silver Age is this fan's definitive DC hero story. Cooke, a student of the masters, did some of his most resonant and striking work on New Frontier. His renderings of the towering figures of the DCU are worthy of the same kind of praise heaped upon such visionaries as Kirby and Kubert, and the colors added to the beautiful layouts by Dave Stewart are quite possibly the best work ever by arguably the best colorist to ever work in the biz. Criticism of the book comes from those who worry that it's too derivative, too similar to tales that came before it, such as Watchmen or James Robinson's underrated The Golden Age. While The New Frontier does bear a resemblance to both those books (Cooke even cites Robinson's story as an influence), it is unique enough in its exploration of the theme to be just as relevant, if not more so, than either of its forebears. The greatest thing about The New Frontier is the sheer curiosity of its creator. To consider New Frontier a story simply about DC's Golden and Silver Age heroes would be to miss the point entirely. The New Frontier isn't a retelling or a reimagining of those stories from our past, it's the story between those stories. For years we've been taught that the real story in a comic exists in the gutters, the spaces between panels. With The New Frontier, Darwyn Cooke got down in the gutter and found something extraordinary; the truth behind the heroes we adore. And what a wonderful truth it was.

Catwoman by Ed Brubaker, Darwyn Cooke, Cameron Stewart, et al.


In a world dominated by male heroes and there unrealistic female counterparts, Catwoman was a breath of fresh air. By removing Selina Kyle from the sizeable shadow cast by Batman, Brubaker was able to show us all just how strong, enigmatic and capable a person Catwoman really is. Brubaker's story, on the surface, is about a villain trying to clean up her act and walk the straight and narrow, but that's really just one layer. Catwoman reads like a love letter to the DC Universe while at the same time reading like a critique of the hamfisted ideas of right and wrong espoused by so many of its denizens. Selina Kyle is a conflicted, complicated woman, but she's also a hero. Brubaker capably illustrates this and in doing so creates one of the most human, most relatable superheroes to ever grace the page. Plus the art, by Darwyn Cooke and later Cameron Stewart (and colored brilliantly by Matt Hollingsworth) is astounding and works as the perfect compliment to Brubaker's tale, grounding the book in a beautifully rendered and ultimately realistic environment.

Runaways by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona


Perhaps the most surprising title on the list, Runaways was one of the most consistent books of the decade. While most lists will probably include Mr. Vaughan's other volumnious title, Y: The Last Man, I chose Runaways for a very specific reason; it's perhaps the most widely appealing comic I've ever read. While I by no means want to discount the merit of the Batman stories by Grant Morrison, the Swamp Thing tales by Alan Moore, etc, when I stop to think about the perfect comic book story, I visualize something very similar to Runaways. Mining the same creative wells that made shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer so successful, Vaughan, along with the excellent Adrian Alphona, created a team of superpowered teenagers on the run from their villainous parents. That's right, the premise of the book is a bunch of teenagers rebelling against their parents. Sound simple? It is, but that's okay. The themes explored in Runaways (growing up, love, distrust, joy, betrayal, family and fellowship) are things that every reader, from age 12 to age 65 can instantly relate to. And that's what I mean about the perfect comic. When you pick up Runaways, regardless of your level of exposure to the Marvel Universe, your age or your tastes, there is something in that book for you. Perhaps it doesn't quite reach the heights of say, Tintin, but Runaways has to at least be in the discussion of best All Ages comics of all time.

Batman: Year 100 by Paul Pope


I was skeptical about Batman: Year 100 when I first picked it up. Sure, I love Paul Pope as much as the next guy (perhaps more), but upon first glance something about this book just didn't sit right with me. Given my faith in Mr. Pope, I decided to swallow my misgivings and give it a chance. Good choice. I'm not sure I've consumed a comic faster than I did Year 100. I could not put it down. Each new page brought a deeper understanding of the myth that is Batman, all set in a Gibson-esque future and rendered with the kind of haunting beauty and stark futurism that only Paul Pope can accomplish. This is a singular book about a singular hero and it is a must own.

The Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba


Talk about skeptical. Dark Horse's latest is written by that guy from My Chemical Romance? Really? I wasn't sanguine. But the good reviews started to come in, then Grant Morrison called it his favorite new comic, and suddenly I found my interest piqued. The first volume was fascinating, exhilarating and utterly chilling. Way's writing on the book recalled the best moments of Grant Morrison's run on Doom Patrol and the story itself hinted at a larger, richer and darker world that Way and his talented collaborator, Gabriel Ba, would be peeling back the layers of again and again. As good as the first volume was, the second volume, Dallas, was a complete level up. Peeling back the veil of American history in an effort to show us all just how out of our control our world really is, Way and Ba created one of the most original, triumphant and ultimately heartbreaking stories ever committed to the comics page. I don't know what the next decade holds for the Umbrella kids, but if it's anything like this decade it should be outstanding.

Planetary by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday


Maybe it's the fact that I came to Planetary late that allowed it to get onto this list. I never had to suffer the long publishing delays and the frustrations with the creators that were born from them. Reading it as a collection, Planetary is perhaps my favorite comic of all time. Forget all the problems with deadlines, the complaints that some fans had that Ellis's exploration of the "science" of superheroes was too dense and obtuse to make for easy reading, and celebrate for a minute what really makes Planetary great. Planetary is Warren Ellis's explanation of why superheroes are important to us, why we continue to create them, and why, so long as there is a world in peril, they will always survive. Reading at times like a love letter to superheroes and at times like a critical exploration of the entire history of adventure comics, Planetary does what so many fans have tried to do for years; it explains comics. That's no small feat, and for accomplishing it, Misters Ellis and Cassaday will always have a place on any "Best Of..." list this writer creates.

Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday


Yet another title that I managed to pick up once it was complete and therefore missed all the publishing delays. I guess it's a good thing Cassaday mainly does covers now, huh? I was a big X-Men fan growing up. I read it almost to the exclusion of everything else. If a book had an X on the cover, I was reading it. Like most comic fans around my age, my introduction to the X-Men came through the Chris Claremont/John Byrne stuff, and years later those stories still represent what I think about when I think X-Men. Over ther years there have been good X-stories, certainly, but none of them reached the heights of those original Claremont and Byrne books. Then came Astonishing X-Men, written by Joss Whedon and penciled by the aforementioned Cassaday. Whedon's voice was perfect for capturing the tone and the themes of the early Claremont books and the always stellar Cassaday lent so much energy to the characters that the four volumes they created together rivaled those stories from my youth. Whedon understands conflict, romance, sacrifice and heroism as well if not better than many of the people working in superheroes today, and all of those things are essential to telling a good X-Men story. Plus, he made Cyclops the badass this squeaky clean, Scott Summers-loving kid always knew he could be. For that alone, I am eternally grateful.

The Surfing the Bleed Review - Incorruptible #1 by Mark Waid & Jean Diaz

Incorruptible is the companion title to Mark Waid's newest exploration of the superhero archetype, Irredeemable. If you're not familiar with the books, Irredeemable is Waid's exploration of what happens when a Superman-like hero finally reaches his breaking point and Incorruptible is what happens when that hero's arch-nemesis decides to "go straight" in an effort to stop him.

Incorruptible #1 is a fantastic flip side of the Irredeemable coin. While it suffers from the unfortunate failing of many first issues (it seems to go by far too quickly), it still succeeds in offering a good introduction to the characters who appear to be the central focus of the book. Chief amongst those characters is Max Damage, a villain of the worst sort who appears to be the only man alive capable of standing up to the Plutonian, Waid's villainous Superman analog, and living to tell the tale.


Damage is a character with immediate impact. From the first moment you see a supporting character react to him (a method Waid uses to great effect to quickly paint a picture of Damage's previous life) you want to know more. There is depth to this man, there are layers, more so, perhaps, than there are even to the Plutonian himself. What Waid has done with this first issue is tap into the Superman/Batman dynamic that made Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns such a successful look into the possible future of these godlike figures. While the situation is certainly different (The Plutonian is no government stooge and Max Damage is no aging hero), the core of Miller's premise is there; casting Superman as the villain responsible for the ailing state of the world and Batman as the only man on the planet capable of stopping him.


To hammer this analogy home, Waid has even given Max Damage, his flawed Batman analog, his very own underaged sidekick and grizzled police veteran to aid him in his attempt to go straight. These are no shining beacons of justice, however. Robin here is cast as Jailbait, the overtly sexual, underaged female Bonnie Clyde to Damage's Clyde Barrow. James Gordon is represented by Lieutenant Armadale, a dirty cop trying to reform. And really that's the point of Incorruptible; reform. Max Damage isn't perfect, neither are Jailbait nor Armadale, but they're trying, which is more than can be said for the Plutonian.

There is more hidden beneath the surface of Incorruptible, a surface capably rendered by artist Jean Diaz (whose style is close enough to that of Peter Krause, Iredeemable's penciler, that a very consistent world is being built), but I don't want to ruin it all for you.

If we're to judge a book by its first issue then it would appear that Incorruptible is a story well worth investing in. What Waid is doing is along the lines of Kirkman's Invincible, Moore's America's Best Comics and Busiek's Astro City. He's showing us a world full of walking gods and high adventure, a world of vast potential and deadly greed, a world full of larger than life heroes and nasty as hell villains. In short, it's all stuff we've seen before, but with Iredeemable and now with the inclusion of Incorruptible, Mark Waid has done what those creators before him also did so successfully; he's turning our pop mythology on its head and giving us a new world to explore.

So let's go exploring.

Five Page Preview of Mark Waid's Incorruptible!

MARK WAID’S NEW SERIES
INCORRUPTIBLE
HITS SHELVES
12/16!

MARK WAID WAS EVIL
MARK WAID
IS
INCORRUPTIBLE!

The Flip Side To This Year’s Break-Out Smash Hit IRREDEEMABLE!

A New Ongoing Series That Asks The Question:
What Happens When A Villain Becomes A Hero?

FIRST LOOK! – 5 PAGE PREVIEW

What happens when a villain becomes a hero? Find out on December 16th when BOOM! Studios' new series, INCORRUPTIBLE, the flip side to Mark Waid’s super hero epic IRREDEEMABLE, hits store shelves! Written by Waid and sporting sensational interior art by Jean Diaz (WONDER WOMAN), INCORRUPTIBLE features A & B covers by John Cassaday (ASTONISHING X-MEN) and Tim Sale (BATMAN: LONG HALLOWEEN) with a C cover by Jeffrey Spokes.

INCORRUPTIBLE showcases super villain Max Damage, who had an epiphany the day The Plutonian destroyed Sky City. That day, when The Plutonian turned his back on humanity, Max Damage decided to step up. Now Max Damage has changed his name to Max Daring and turned from his formerly selfish ways to become… INCORRUPTIBLE. The flip side to this year’s break-out smash hit IRREDEEMABLE, INCORRUPTIBLE examines the hard, difficult road to changing your ways and making a difference in the world.

“Buckle yourselves in and prepare for one of the best titles you’ve seen of this or any year,” said BOOM Marketing Director Chip Mosher. “And while you don’t need to be picking up IRREDEEMABLE to enjoy this new series, INCORRUPTIBLE continues Waid’s complex study of caped morality at the end of the world.”

About BOOM! Studios
BOOM! Studios (www.boom-studios.com) is a unique publishing house specializing in high-profile projects across a wide variety of different genres from some of the industry's biggest talents, including Philip K. Dick's DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?, The Henson Company's FARSCAPE, and the original Mark Waid series IRREDEEMABLE. BOOM! recently launched its youth imprint, BOOM Kids!, with Pixar's THE INCREDIBLES, CARS, and TOY STORY, as well as Disney's THE MUPPETS, DONALD DUCK, UNCLE SCROOGE and WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES. This year, BOOM! Studios celebrates its fourth anniversary.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Is Hiring.

The CBLDF announced today that they are looking to fill two open positions in their organization. If you have non-profit experience and you love comics, perhaps this is the opportunity you've been looking for.

More about the positions can be found here.

Good luck and don't forget to support the CBLDF!

The Surfing the Bleed Interview - Joy Taney

Joy Taney is a writer and artist currently interning at Gaijin Studios, the home of such talent as Laura Martin, Brian Stelfreeze and Cully Hammer. A child of two musicians and a graduate of the prestigious Savannah College of Art and Desgin, Joy has creativity in spades. She sat down with me over the holidays for this very candid interview. Enjoy!

Surfing the Bleed: Welcome to Surfing the Bleed, Joy. Thanks for taking the time to do this interview. Let's get started!

Joy Taney: Delighted.

Surfing the Bleed: Your parents were both musicians. You say that you grew up moving in and out of various folk music scenes. Does that mean your family uprooted a great deal, moved from city to city?

Joy Taney: We actually didn't move around that much. We did spend a lot of time in my father's station wagon driving all over the Northeast US, though. I spent a fair amount of my childhood in the backseat with a bunch of instruments.

Surfing the Bleed: What sort of an affect did that have on you as a child? Is there a part of that sort of gypsy lifestyle that you believe made you more aware of the "real world" and taught you more about life and people? That is to say, do you feel that having a non-traditional childhood made you a better storyteller?

Joy Taney: I consider myself extremely lucky to have experienced a childhood immersed in the artist community. I was exposed to the professional lives of literary, performing, and visual artists, and any expression of my own creativity was rewarded. I even played bass for the band for four years. Growing up in that environment made me think differently from the other kids my age, which helped with the originality of the stories I wrote and drew. It also prepared me for the hardships of being a professional artist.

Surfing the Bleed: You attended the Pennsylvania Governor's School of Excellence for the Arts when you were young. Can you speak a bit about the experience you had there and how it helped you develop as an artist?

Joy Taney: PGSA was the moment when I decided to be a comic book creator over being a writer. I always knew I wanted to tell stories. It was also the first place where I saw individuality being rewarded by my peers, which for a high schooler was pretty different. It was a magical experience. I have a distinct memory of coming back from the ER--I had this horrible ear infection--and being blown away by the kids setting up sheets in the grotto so they could project a movie on them and watch a life-sized Fantasia. We all had this deep love of the arts that united us, the dancers, writers, musicians, actors and artists. I keep in contact with some of the people I know through there, but not enough. I recently did a photo shoot with my fellow PGSA alumnus, Nathan Kuruna.

Surfing the Bleed: Does it disappoint you to see that the program for 2009 had to canceled due to the current abysmal state of the economy?

Joy Taney: It breaks my heart. For those of us that went to PGSA that didn't already know we wanted to go into the arts, that was the clincher. It means less lifelong artists.



Surfing the Bleed: You mentioned to me that you had a pretty tough set of years in your teens. Your mother succumbed to cancer, your grandfather to Parkinson's, and you yourself suffered from a chronic illness. It was that series of hardships that you say lead you down the path toward comics. I know it's not easy to recall, but could you talk about that time period in your life, what was affecting you, and how you eventually turned to comics to help you through that time?

Joy Taney: The worst period of my life was from when I was 14 to 19. First we discovered I had reflex sympathetic dystrophy (learn more at http://www.rsds.org/index2.html), which is a nervous system disorder that causes me to be in constant pain. Then my mother had a seizure that led us to learning she had a brain tumor, then my grandfather developed Parkinson's, and became verbally abusive to the people he loved. My mother and grandfather died six weeks apart, just months after I moved away for college. Comics were my escape. I would be lying in bed, in intense pain, but I'd still be able to draw. I made comics about my mother's cancer. I worked on stories where I created situations similar to the ones I was going through, and where it was safe to work through the ordeal without anyone telling me what was appropriate or how I should be feeling. When I was in pain, my stories would examine illness. When my mother died, I killed off my favorite characters. It was an exhausting process, to exorcise my feelings through story, but very therapeutic. And I know, when I'm having a bad day due to the RSD or missing my mom or something else, I can always turn to my comics as a way to let it out.

Surfing the Bleed: Were there any particular titles or any particular creators that really resonated with you during that time period and helped you start to cope?

Joy Taney: I started reading Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise at the tail end of all that misery, and I think it's been a very big influence on me, both in storytelling and style. Moore is never afraid to experiment with form.

Surfing the Bleed: Did you ever sense any disappointment from your father or the rest of your family when you decided to pursue art instead of music, or did you always feel a lot of support for your pursuits?

Joy Taney: If not for music, my father would have been a cartoonist. He was the one who taught me to draw, with me working from a cartooning book on the floor and him on the art desk above me. He has been my number one fan and supporter throughout my college years. My mother was more interested in my writing--aside from being a musician, she was also a journalist--but was happy to see me choose comics. In fact, on her death bed she made me promise not to drop out of college from grief. If anything, they were worried that I chose to be an artist because their lives proved that it could be difficult financially. The people who took it a little harder were my maternal grandparents. My grandmother wanted me to be a doctor and my grandfather wanted me to be President.

Surfing the Bleed: You attended the prestigious Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, GA. SCAD has a history of really supporting the medium of graphic storytelling and even offers a degree in that field. Can you talk about your experience there, how it helped you mature as an artist and how it affected your approach to comics?

Joy Taney: I learned just as much about how to act like an artist as I did to draw like one at SCAD. Being able to do creative problem-solving and take criticism was something I really struggled with, and I think only in my senior year did I make headway (and if any of my former professors are reading this, I'm well aware and very sorry that I was a miserable little troll in your classes. I really am, I was terrible). For my last three years I attended the satellite campus in Atlanta, and the teachers there were very focused on visual storytelling, which is the key to getting the story across clearly. Let's be frank, my art isn't as beautiful as a lot of the other people who came out of SCAD, but with sharp visual storytelling skills I can make it more appealing.

Surfing the Bleed: You're interning right now for Gaijin Studios in Atlanta, a comics collective that includes such heavy-hitters as Laura Martin, Brian Stelfreeze and Cully Hamner. Can you tell us how you landed the job and what all it entails?

Joy Taney: I got the internship through SCAD. The application process went like a basic portfolio review, except that the guys cracked a couple offensive jokes to see if I was cool with their sense of humor. The internship itself is a dream--studio space and time to work on my own projects interspersed with jobs or errands that I do for the people at Gaijin. I've flatted, I've filled in blacks, scanned and resized work... the other day I used a kneaded eraser to lift off extra graphite so Karl Story, another of the awesome artists at Gaijin Studios, could ink some pages with less difficulty. Did you know there's even a special technique (learn more) for that? The most consistent job I do, though, is cleaning up the studio and taking out the trash. Maybe someday I'll find a discarded sketch in the garbage and sell it on eBay! Don't get your hopes up though, I can't see a faster way of getting that internship canned.

Surfing the Bleed: What have you learned from your time there and how has working with those big creators affected your work and your approach to the industry?

Joy Taney: I've been interning since June and I still can't stop geeking out over how cool it is, to work under the pros! They have all taught me something. What I love about Gaijin is that it's essentially a continuation of my education, only this time I don't have to pay for it. I get a lot of tips on advanced storytelling and professional etiquette.



Surfing the Bleed: You're currently working on your own creator-owned property, Son of Babylon. It's a story with deep roots in Hebrew history. Can you tell us a bit about the book and what your inspiration for the story was?

Joy Taney: Son of Babylon is my prequel to the Book of Ezra. It takes place in 500 BC, when the Hebrews were forced out of their home city of Judah to live in Babylon as second-class citizens. It follows Zerubbabel, who will eventually become the man to free the Hebrews, in his younger years and sees him start to take a hand in Hebrew history. The first thing on his task list is to ferret out the mole in his community who is secretly working for the shah of Babylon.
The inspiration for Son of Babylon was actually something that happened 2000 years before, involving the mysterious, marauding Sea People. There was a quote by Rameses III about them, "No land could stand before their arms... They laid their hands upon the land to the ends of the earth." Tell me that doesn't send chills up your spine! Originally the story would have taken place in 2500 BC and been about a farmboy who encountered the Sea People, but when I was researching Assyrian names I came across the history of Zerubbabel and realized that would make for a much more interesting topic. No one's told any stories about the events I'm covering since the writers of the Bible, so I have a lot of untouched material to play with.

Surfing the Bleed: What creative and historical influences are you drawing from for Son of Babylon?

Joy Taney: I've been developing this story for almost a year now, and the hardest part is the research. For instance, my best friend wants to do a comic that takes place during the French Revolution. She can get books on the historical clothing, take a virtual tour of Versailles, and if she was really hard up, she could go on Wikipedia. I don't have it anywhere as lucky. In a year, I've acquired only four books on the time period and a handful of websites. One of my biggest resources has been the Bible itself. You can agree or disagree with what it has to say theologically, but the records kept on the time period I'm studying were pretty detailed. There are some things in Son of Babylon that are intentionally historically inaccurate, like how all of the carts in my rendition of Babylon are actually Roman carts, because I can't find any pictures of Babylonian carts. Most of the inaccuracies I am aware of, and use for dramatic purposes. The creative part comes in when I not only have to weave a story around this series of historical events, but when I come to a piece of history, mostly visual, that I don't have any information on. Luckily Babylon has its own aesthetics and I'm learning to fake it convincingly.



Surfing the Bleed: You identify yourself as reform Jewish. Can you speak a bit about your journey through your faith, how it affects your life and how it influences your work?

Joy Taney: I came from a family that took a broad variety of influences into their faith. Every Passover seder, my grandfather, an environmental scientist, would loudly proclaim that the God he worshiped was not a little man in the clouds taking notes on everything bad that you did. My mother was, in college, part of a Hindu cult, and my father went to Catholic school, and I studied Theosophy for a while. It kept me very open-minded and I have had the opportunity to see a lot of different faiths in action. Jewish culture encourages intelligence and analysis--one of the most respected things you can do is become a Rabbi so you can analyze the hidden meanings of the Torah all day. I take a scientific approach to faith, and that's perfectly acceptable within the religion. It also allows me to look at the Bible, a major part of my research for this book, as not only a religious text but as a historical one as well as a guide to the culture at the time it was written.

Surfing the Bleed: Talk a bit, if you would, about the process of creating the pitch for Son of Babylon and what the reaction to it has been so far. Also, you're in competition for some grants for your work due to the nature of the subject matter, correct?

Joy Taney: I've worked on my pitch packets with a few people looking over my shoulder, chief among them Cully Hamner. I try to market them in eye-catching ways--Matt Kindt's creative designs inspired me to wrap the physical packets in actual papyrus, which I would cut down to size and print designs out on. The reactions I get from publishers have been two-fold--everyone finds the pitch and sample pages to be very exciting, but so far none of them have said it was a good fit for the company. I showed Scott Allie of Dark Horse my packet, for instance, and he was very enthusiastic, but when it came down to it, Son of Babylon just wasn't in the direction Dark Horse is moving. As for grants, I'm trying to find the right organization for Hebrew history that would be interested in the comic.

Surfing the Bleed: You mentioned that you have a couple of other projects going right now. Without divulging too much, can you tell us a bit about the other irons you have in the fire and what your plans for them are in the future?

Joy Taney: After Son of Babylon, which will be two graphic novels, I have plans for a three-graphic novel mystery set in a bar. That's inspired by my own experience working as a barmaid as well as a late-night musing on the duality of pleasure. However, the project I'm working on simultaneously with Son of Babylon is a lesbian romance novel with a setting similar to A Handmaid's Tale. It was inspired by Twilight, actually--or to be more specific, my reaction to Twilight, which was, "I can write a better story than this!" So I am.

Surfing the Bleed: You're a comics professional currently trying to break in. So far I've interviewed a number of people who struggled for a while but have finally managed to crack that glass ceiling. What's it like being right on the cusp, feeling like you're so close to a big break? Is the anticipation exciting, nerve-wracking? And what advice do you have for people in a similar position to your own?

Joy Taney: Definitely nerve-wracking. I'm creating this book that's in a genre you don't see a lot of, and that's working against me right now. It's a thrill to get such a good reaction from fellow creators though, there's a number of people out there rooting for me to break in. For people in my situation, I'd say treat every opportunity as a potential for business. Like this interview, for instance--I would love it if I a publisher read this and contacted me about working with them (hint, hint), but it's also adding to my visibility before I get that first job, which is good because people might recognize me.

Surfing the Bleed: The comics industry isn't one dominated by female creators. Do you think your gender makes it harder for you to break in? Have you encountered any situations yet where you felt like people were marginalizing you as a "female" creator instead of treating you as simply a creator?

Joy Taney: At this point in the comic industry's development, I feel that being a girl is an asset instead of a liability. People get excited when they hear about new female comic book creators. At Baltimore Con, the thing I kept hearing was how badly everyone wanted to read more books about girls, written by girls. That was great for my friend to hear, who's working on a female-oriented superhero story, but there I was, feeling awkward about being a girl writing a book about a boy! If anything, I've experienced reverse discrimination--people are more interested because I'm female and that's still rare. However, I do feel there aren't enough truly interesting women characters in mainstream comics, and I'd love a chance to help change that. Most mainstream comics are written for a male audience, and so the male characters have the more interesting stories while the women act as love interests and eye candy. It's rare to find a girl character who can really hold her own with the men while not simultaneously being shot in angles that emphasize her T&A. Men are strong, and women are sexy. I'd like to see some more inversions of that trope.

Surfing the Bleed: What creative goals would you like to achieve in your time in the comics industry? Any particular tropes you'd like to shatter or stories you really want to tell? What are you passionate about and what do you want the industry to know about you, about what you plan to do to advance comics into the future?

Joy Taney: That relates back to the last question, and what I said about interesting female protagonists. I would love to introduce new characters or rework establishing ones to be fascinating independent of their male counterparts. I'm also a strong proponent of idea-driven stories, and my goal with any story I work on is to carry through on the strong idea behind it.

Surfing the Bleed: Thanks again for doing the interview Joy! It's always great to sit down with a fellow Browncoat. You've been absolutely fantastic and I really appreciate your candor. I wish you the best of luck as you continue down this road and Surfing the Bleed will be pulling for you!

Joy Taney: It's been a pleasure, and I wish Surfing the Bleed all the best in the future!

The Surfing the Bleed Review - Incredibles #3 by Mark Waid, Landry Walker and Ramanda Kamarga

Issue three of BOOM! Studios ongoing The Incredibles book by Mark Waid, Landry Walker and Ramanda Kamarga offers a fun, fast-paced finale to the current Jack Jack-fueled storyline that is sure to delight comics fans of all ages.

The script, penned by Waid and Walker, is a thing of streamlined beauty that balances the exposition with enough humor and sweeping action to keep things moving at a brilliant pace. The pair also inject the book with a fair helping of superhero tropes, playing a familiar game with their own set of rules and in the process creating a book that will please longtime superhero fans while offering a good jumping on point for new readers.

The pair of Waid and Landry are joined again this issue by Ramanda Kamarga. Like Marcio Takara before him, Kamarga captures the energy and aesthetic of the original animation while remaining true to his own style. And it's a style that compliments the action in Waid and Walker's script perfectally. Every big action sequence, every facial expression, every nuance of costuming or power represenation is conveyed with serious skill by Kamarga.

The story in issue three closes up the Jack Jack illness storyline and ends with a cliffhanger that leaves readers craving more. And really, that's what I think is best about the BOOM! Kids line, The Incredibles especially. While there is plenty of value to be found in the kids offerings from the Big Two (Marvel, DC), it could be said that the one-shot format employed for most of their books does little to engage young readers in a manner that will keep them coming back for more. Not to sound too mercenary, but one of the most important aspects of publishing comics for kids is making sure that they keep reading the comics you're publishing and in the proccess create a new generation of comic readers. The best way to do that is to give them a book that embraces the traditions of the medium by requiring that they come back each month to get the next installment of the story. BOOM!'s The Incredibles title does exactly that, and that's what makes it the best introduction to superheroes you could possibly give a young reader right now.

If you haven't checked it out, the first volume by Mark Waid and Marcio Takara (The Incredibles: Family Matters) is available in collected form now. With the first volume out, the second volume wrapped up and the third ready to start soon, (oh, and by the way, Christmas and Hannukah are coming up) this is a great time to introduce your favorite superheroes to this great offering from BOOM! Kids.