Ozopolis review at Hungry Tiger Talk

OZopolis review from David Maxine at the Hungry Tiger Talk blog.

Welcome to Ozopolis!

by David Maxine.

One Ozzy project I wanted to track down at Comic Con last weekend was the new comic Ozopolis.

I had seen the cover and a short preview on-line, and it looked “promising.” I usually pay little attention to new Oz comics as there are so many these days and sadly most are “revamps” and “updates,” many of which turn Oz into a dark, psychotic land of mayhem and bloodshed. But when I looked at the online preview and saw the depictions of the Wizard with his typical Neill temple curls and saw the Woozy had a starring role, my curiosity was piqued.

Happily, Ozopolis has exceeded my “promising” expectations and is an utterly charming new Oz story. Writer Kirk Kushin and artist Gonzalo Martinez have produced a very engaging story. It feels fresh, new, and absolutely right. It is the Oz we all know and love. Ozma sounds like Ozma, the glass cat behaves like the glass cat, and Kushin clearly knows and loves Baum’s Oz books very much.

One of the few bows to modernity is a clothing update for Dorothy and Ozma. Dorothy gets shorts, t-shirt, sneakers, and a little Ozzy jacket; and Ozma has traded in her flowing negligee-style gown for a slightly General Jinjuresque uniform. But uniform aside, Ozma’s character is right on target. She’s lovely, has a fondness for protocol, very warm, but a bit opaque.

The plot in this issue revolves around the Queen of the Field Mice asking Ozma for help dealing with some unusual wildcats. Since the problem is occurring in the deadly Poppy Field, Ozma sends three non-breathing Oz folk, Tik-tok, the Glass Cat, and the Sawhorse, on the mission. All three are smack-dab in character and are very funny. And when the Woozy is sent to rescue the rescuers, a hysterical moment occurs when the field mice can’t remember the right word to make the Woozy’s eyes flash fire.
In typical Baumian fashion, the “villain”of this issue is not as black as he seems. And while this issue has nice closure, a bigger threat remains to carry us on to future issues. I hope there will be many more to come.

Martinez’s art for the issue is very good. The characters feel fresh and new, but will be wholly recognizable to Oz purists. It’s a little cartoony (in a good way), yet advances the story, as good comic art should.

The one real blemish to the book is the number of typos and missing articles in the word balloons. Even a cursory proof-reading should have caught them. If the series continues and a trade is ever issued, I hope they will be corrected.

So, if you’re hankering for a new Oz adventure, I happily suggest you try a short visit to Ozopolis!

You can see more previews and order copies at:

Super Teen*Topia, the graphic novel!!

The graphic novel is coming out in December from Diamond to your local comic book store! STT: Invisible Touch is the original 0 – 4 issues — plus all new material from the never published issues 5 – 6. At 196 pages it’s only $15.99! Super Teen*Topia by Kirk Kushin, Gonzalo Martinez and Laura Abella.

In a world of super powered icons, being sixteen and having amazing abilities isn’t quite as life altering as comic books would have you believe. No jets, no indestructible costumes and no high-tech headquarters mean that these young super-heroes can only fight crime as far as the bus route will take them.

Join four friends as they experience all the fun of high school — but with a super powered twist. Super Teen*Topia: just because you can level a mountain, it doesn’t make it any easier to get a prom date!

Check Super Teen*Topia group at Facebook!

Road Story commented by ARI PLISKIN (U.S.A.)

Crítica aparecida en el blog “In search of the most unforgettable tree we ever met”

The First Chilean Graphic Novel

Here is one gem that I found at convention Viñetas Sueltas in Buenos Aires in May. Published in 2007, Road Story is a comics adaptation of a short story by Chilean Alberto Fuguet (whose accomplishments include translations into several languages and one movie). As in David Mazzuchelli’s adaptation of City of Glass, cartoonist Gonzalo Martínez uses the unique language of comics. While collections of serialized political or humorous comics are common in Chile, it is less usual to publish a longer narrative story, in this case 127 pages.

A paragraph from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road including the line “I didn’t know who I was” introduces the story opposite the splash page. While Kerouac transformed travel into a lifelong journey of losing his ego and searching for Enlightenment, this adventure is a road trip with which middle-class Americans may be more familiar. As the opening line states: “Simon feels that all this is a parenthesis. Parentheses are like boomerangs, he believes. They even look like them. They enter your life suddenly and cut off your past from your present with a clean precise blow.”

Subtly using characters’ experiences to hint at a broader social context, Road Story is a telling window into both the pan-American dream and its dark side. After a failed marriage, protagonist Simon sold his business and left his home in Chile. Retracing a path that Fuguet once traveled himself, Simon weaves around the American Southwest and dips into Mexico. As seen below (click to enlarge), using awkward camera angles that don’t reveal the character’s face, Simon contemplates his accomplishments. A book he edited for his father’s company is tossed aside amid a bottle of Gatorade, a symbol of American consumption familiar in South America. (Before I cheaply inserted English text using Paint, captions had typed letters while world and thought balloons were hand-lettered.)

Like Jason Lutes, the author subtly creates a sad, yet endearing tone and enriches the story with visual motifs that illustrate the character’s inner experience. For example, Simon’s changes in hair style reflect his fumbling self-image. In the flashback below, thawing frost on a windshield serves as a metaphor for his growing awareness that his wife Natalia was cheating on him.

While Jessica Abel’s La Perdida reveals the misguided entry into Latin America of a half-Mexican girl born in the United States, Road Story (the original title of the Spanish-language comic) shows how oddly comfortable a Chilean is in the United States. Indeed, Simon thinks that the United States colonized his subconscious.

The story works because of poignant prose narration complimented by austere drawings. There are also a number of moments, like the illustrations at right and below of how Simon met and married Natalia years earlier, in which images alone communicate key developments.

Compared to its neighbor’s, Chile is a country who has historically had closer economic and political relations with the United States and it is a place with a substantial middle and upper class. In 1988, when the pro-capitalist CIA-backed dictator Pinochet allowed elections for the first time since his coup in 1973, he narrowly lost, winning 44% of the vote. By contrast, the Argentine dictators only received about 10% of the votes when they tried to continue their rule once elections were held. Chile is a country that deals with the complicated legacy of economic “success”. Were it to be translated in English, Road Story would be a fascinating treatment of familiar issues with the twist of the perspective of the developing world.

For the first 10 pages translated into English, check out: Words Whitout Borders.

Disclaimer: This blog author does not promote the abuse of drugs. On the contrary, this story reveals problems that result from it.

Ari Pliskin

Road Story on sale in U.S.A.

If you live in the New York area and you’re curious about my recent graphic novel “Road Story” wich is mainly located in the american/mexican border in cities like El paso, Tucson, Roswell or Ciudad Juarez, you can buy it at:

“The Latin American Bookstore”
204 North Geneva Street
Ithaca, NY 14850
Tel: 607 273-2418
Fax: 607 273 6003

Or you can order it from anywhere in the U.S.A. at their web site.. Scroll down a bit and you’ll find it.

The graphic novel is in spanish but you can read the first ten pages HERE, translated into english by Words without borders, The On Line Magazine for International Literature,meanwhile we’re searching for an english language publisher.

Road Story at CRITICAS MAGAZINE (U.S.A.)

Review at “Criticas Magazine”

Road Story.

Reviewed by Bruce Jensen, South Texas Coll. Lib., McAllen, TX

Fuguet, Alberto & Gonzalo Martínez (illus).
Chile/ U.S.: Alfaguara. 2007. 127p. illus. ISBN 978-956-239-538-0. pap. $16.99. GRAPHIC NOVEL

Groundbreaking and influential, Chilean author Fuguet hooked up with countryman Martínez to produce what is by their reckoning the first graphic novel issued by a major Chilean publisher.

An homage to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, this story is emphatically North American. Raised in Southern California, Fuguet has been working with the motif of an alienated Chilean drifter traveling near the U.S.-Mexico border for many years.

An early draft, “La verdad o las consecuencias” (“Truth or Consequences”), appeared in the McOndo anthology in 1996, and another version was included in his 2005 collection Cortos (Shorts). In this small-format, black-and-white graphic novel, an introspective thirtysomething man from Santiago travels to escape a soured marriage and other failures, using cash embezzled from his employer.

Paired with the narrative, Martínez’s strong, richly atmospheric artwork depicts the southwestern United States along parts of Route 66, with interludes in Tucson, Roswell, and Truth or Consequences, NM, and a climactic episode in El Paso/Juárez.

The illustrations bring a proper touch of darkness to the story, carrying such cinematic weight that the author can advance the plot with few words. Recommended for all libraries and bookstores serving readers capable of dealing with pictures of explicit sex scenes.

Road Story in English

This month issue of the on line magazine for international literature Words without borders features an extract of “Road Story” translated into english.
Please take a look at the first ten pages here.

San Diego Comic-Con 2006

I found this set of pictures from my last visit to the San Diego Comic-Con, I wanted to share them with you.

Encontré este set de fotos de mi visita a la Comicon de San Diego el año 2006. Quise compartirlas con ustedes.

[View with PicLens]

Super Teen*Topia in Newsarama

Kirk Kushin talks about Super Teen Topia in Newsarama.
“It seems like most teen books today are either a variation of the Teen Titans (the classic super team institution) or the New Mutants (the academy Sky High theme). I wanted to develop something that took a look at being empowered more from the sensibilities of a John Hughes film. Being a teen and operating in a high school environment is a major challenge… just because you have “powers” doesn’t mean your problems go away. The book is very much in the vein of Greatest American Hero – where the character had a suit with powers but he was still dealing with everyday issues… stuff that was funny because you could relate to it. Super Teen*Topia is all the good stuff of Freaks and Geeks, Square Pegs and Sixteen Candles… but in a “super-soap” format.”

Check the whole interview here.

Super Teen*Topia reviewed by Ray McLelland.
“And such is Veronica Mars meets 90201 meets Dawson’s Creek meets Revenge of the Nerds all wrapped up in Super Teen Topia. It’s not Generation X where the kids in school all run off in their costumes to beat up so-and-so and team-up with Howard the Duck. We meet our stars of the book in issue 1 and know right away that by issue 5 they aren’t going to be off in costume fighting Galactus. S.T.T. is a real feel slice-of-life comic book with a dash of superpowers thrown in. ”

Check the whole review here.

Super Teen*Topia issue #1 published in Newsarama.
“With issue #4 due out in October, Forcewerks has provided Newsarama with the full first issue of Super Teen Topia by Kirk Kushin and Gonzalo Martinez with colors by Laura Abella. ”

Check it out here.

Super Teen*Topia in Comixtreme.com

Blake Petit reviewed Super Teen*Topia #1 for Comixtreme.com.

“Super Teen*Topia is something I didn’t think was even possible anymore – a new angle on superheroes that doesn’t sacrifice the elements that make the genre so much fun in the first place. This is the kind of stuff that’s making it fun to read comic books again.”

Check the whole review here.

Super Teen*Topia on Jazma On Line

Kirk Kushin talk about Super Teen*Topia on jazma On line.
“Essentially STT is about what teenagers would really do with super-powers. The best analogy I can give is; imagine if you give a sixteen-year old a million bucks, I doubt they are going to donate it all to charity. So I’m trying to take an alternate look at the traditional super-powered teen as opposed to the whole “great power/responsibility” riff. But, I like to qualify that by saying this is not an edgy deconstruction of the genre — it’s actually more like my valentine to some of the great series I grew up with like Chris Claremont’s The New Mutants.”

Check the whole interview here.

An interview at The Comic Book Bin regarding “Holed Up”

When Holed Up was published I had an interview with LJ Douresseau for The Comic Book Bin.

Gonzalo Martinez is Richard Johnston’s partner-in-crime on RICH JOHNSTON’S HOLED UP. Martinez, a Chilean artist, joined Johnston, the creator of the popular “Lying in the Gutters” column for the website Comic Book Resources, for a three-issue mini-series that Avatar Press began publishing in April 2004. Several weeks ago, I sent Martinez a short round of questions and his responses make up Mr. Charlie #31:

Would you mind giving us a little background or biographical information about yourself?

GM: I was born in 1961 and I’ve living in Santigo de Chile since that date. I’m married with children (actually two lovely kids). I studied architecture and I worked for 15 years as an architect, working on comics on my spare time but last year I decided to leave my job and try to do comics as a main job.

What were the first comics that you were exposed to, and/or when did you first see American comics? What were your favorites?

GM: I have read comics since I was a little child (3 or 4 years old). My family used to read Spanish language versions of American comics, and not only American but also French, Spanish, Argentinean and Chilean comics. I used to love the Sunday comics pages where I read PRINCE VALIANT AND JOHNNY HAZZARD, for example. I was exposed mainly to DC Comics titles because they were published in Spanish by the Mexican publisher Novaro (I’m talking about the 60s and the 70s). I loved all of them you know, SUPERMAN, BATMAN, the JUSTICE LEAGUE [OF AMERICA], but I used to have a lot of fun with the weird titles: METAMORPHO, ULTRA DE MULTIMAN, THE CHALLENGRS OF THE UNKNOWN, the characters from Earth 2. I was a big fan of BLACKHAWK and I loved the short life of THE SECRET SIX.

When did you decide to become a comic book artist? How did you educate or train yourself to that end?

GM: Actually I like to think that I was born as a comic book artist. I’ve been doing comics before I learned to read, you know, on the tables and walls. I learned by myself, reading a lot of comics and standard literature and going to the movies. It was not easy because the strong Chilean comic publishing industry died suddenly from 1973 to 1975.

Who are the artists and cartoonists who influenced you and continue to influence you?

GM: It’s a long, long list, I can give you the names that right now come to my mind: Will Eisner, Mike Wieringo, Jim Steranko, Carl Barks, Michael Lark, John Bogdanove, Charles Schultz, the Hernandez bros, Jeff Smith, Mike Kaluta, Barry Windsor Smith, Pat McEown, Carlos Gimenez, Herge, Hermann, Edgar P. Jacobs, Hugo Pratt, Moebius, Max Carvajal, Martin Caceres. Uf! A long list. It doesn’t mean that I’d like to draw the way they do or that only their artistic skills influenced my pencil. They have been an influence in a more important and deep meaning. I’ve been influenced by their storytelling and the love they put in their work.

Have you done any professional work prior to getting the assignment to draw Holed Up?

GM: I’ve been published in my country since 1987 in a wide range of media, from independent comic magazines to newspapers doing comics, illustrations and comic strips. My strip HORACE & THE PROFESSOR was published since 1989 to 1999 in the main Chilean newspaper EL MERCURIO and in the comics banner of the Opera internet browser. I published a short story written by Matt Starnes on Digital Webbing Presents. You can take a look at some of that material at my on line portfolio http://www.ergocomics.cl/martinez.

How did you get the assignment to draw Holed Up?

GM: It was a case of the right submission email to the right publisher in the right moment.

Are you contributing anything to the story? How much freedom does Rich’s script give you to experiment or make changes when you need to make some story element work visually.

GM: I like to think of myself as a storyteller, my mission is to tell the story the better that I can. My main contribution to the story was to get involved in the story that Rich wanted to tell through his script. I tried to feel and understand what Rich wanted to say and tell that story through drawings. Well I admit that part was kind of easy because I felt a connection between our twisted minds. So I did not feel the need of adding or changing things. Sometimes I added or took out a panel or so because the pace, but basically I drew the script. Any detail that I added to the panels was intended to reinforce the story and give it a supporting background.

How familiar are you with American pop culture or with the segments of American culture that Rich satirizes: the American middle class, the so-called nuclear family unit, the American love or some would say obsession with firearms? Are you having to do a lot of research?

GM: This question deserves a 3 hours of friendly and interesting conversation sitting around a cafe table… but in few words: U.S.A. culture is a very strong culture and I’m not talking about the subject of Holed Up. I’m sure you’ll be surprised on how much we (South Americans, for example) know about U.S.A. history, culture, politics, art and social movements. The American movie, television, music, fashion and comic book industry is all over the world and those are strong cultural vehicles. So I am very familiar with the U.S.A. culture and I was very familiar with the specific subject of Holed Up. The research I did was based on the scenographic details. If you want to talk more about this point, just ask; I’ll be glad to talk about it. I love the sociological stuff.

Rich mentioned in a post at Newsarama that you’d added a few elements to the cover such as a belt buckle with a Confederate symbol on it and a KKK jack in the box? Do you know anything about that American subculture that many people think of as White Southerners? What do you know about the Confederacy or the KKK’s brutal history of murdering Black Americans?

GM: I think the last answer works for this too.

I ask because some people wouldn’t think that the KKK would be an appropriate subject for cartoon gags, though I’d love to have one of those jack in the boxes. So is this stuff just grist for the mill – less about substance and more about humor?

GM: This is one of the issues that humor has to face. There is always some topics that are difficult to touch because a lot of delicate reasons. Uf!… this is another subject that deserves a cafe conversation. I’d prefer you read the book first and then I’d love to talk about humor and parody. Anyway this book is a “The Simpsons,” “Married with Children,” “The Addams Family” kind of stuff, well… just with semiautomatics weapons.

THANKS, GONZALO: You can find out more about Holed Up at www.avatarpress.com/holedup/, the home of the Holed Up Army. The series is scheduled to wrap in July.

Holed Up press

What did they say about “Holed Up” art?

Super Teen*Topia at NEWSARAMA (U.S.A.)

Critic by Ryan McLelland at NEWSARAMA

YOUR INDY WEEKLY: SUPER TEEN TOPIA #1

by Ryan McLelland

Super Teen Topia #1
Alias Comics – April 2006 – $3.50
Written by: Kirk Kushin
Art by: Gonzalo Martinez
Website: http://www.superteentopia.com

Rating: 3 stars (out of 4)

When you think superhero you might think the strength of Superman, the detective skills and prowess of Batman, and the flawless costume of Wolverine. It certainly isn’t Blackjack – Master of the Umbra Force, is it? That’s because Blackjack the ultimate superhero is just in the mind of high schooler Kevin Harris. It’s not that its all just make-believe because Kevin does have superpowers but he really is just a nerdyish kid with superpowers lost in a wave of a huge high school.

Kevin is ready to start the whole superhero thing. He wants to buy a real costume and become a real superhero. However, just like most kids dream about becoming rich or famous in high school, it looks like Kevin’s dreams are not his reality. What he does have is a best friend named Cameron who also has superpowers. Thing is Cam isn’t really into the superhero supercostume super-secret-identity thing. Cam would rather just get through high school in one piece.

And then there’s Diva, the superteen girl who is running around beating up small-time robbers at the local convenience-mart. She’s the one with the costume underneath her normal clothes and springs into action taking out the bad guy and half the store with it. The thing is Diva and Kevin have hooked up…over the Internet that is, having met each other in a chatroom and talking to each other about their powers and such. Cam is skeptical but one netmeeting later and we see the hot Latina who is behind the mask.

And such is Veronica Mars meets 90201 meets Dawson’s Creek meets Revenge of the Nerds all wrapped up in Super Teen Topia. It’s not Generation X where the kids in school all run off in their costumes to beat up so-and-so and team-up with Howard the Duck. We meet our stars of the book in issue 1 and know right away that by issue 5 they aren’t going to be off in costume fighting Galactus. S.T.T. is a real feel slice-of-life comic book with a dash of superpowers thrown in.

There’s a great scene in the first issue that when a crisis comes up, Kevin runs off to change into his homemade supersuit. It’s classic because the young lad thinks that he needs his costume to be a hero and why wouldn’t he? Isn’t that what he reads in the newspaper or sees the heroes on TV doing? It’s classic because by the time Kevin gets off his clothes and is all fixed up in his costume, the crisis is over. Or so we all think. Because Kevin is finally in costume more chaos comes forth out of it, bringing the teen angst hilarity to a whole new level.

Indy superhero books have been popping up more and more and it’s a nice relief to see this one focused more on the characters out of their costumes and on the troubles of being a teenager then going out to save the universe. It’s Sixteen Candles meets Teen Titans and writer Kirk Kushin seems to be having fun creating a colorful cast of characters that aren’t flawed or vigilantes or looking to punish evil. Kids will be kids and I look forward to seeing where the series is going, especially with Gonzalo Martinez’s nice artwork being colored by the amazing Laura Abella.

Click here to read issue #1.

Super Teen*Topia at COMIXTREME (U.S.A.)

Critic by Blake Petit at COMIXTREME

A meeting of the super-teens

Review by: Blake M. Petit
Quick Rating: Very Good

Writer: Kirk Kushin
Art: Gonzalo Martinez
Cover Art: Diego Baretto
Publisher: Alias Enterprises/forcewerks

Review: While Super Teen*Topia #0 makes for a good low-priced introduction of Alias Enterprises’ newest superhero comic, this first issue improves upon it in virtually every way. There’s more room to develop the characters, more room to develop the world, and the artwork shows considerable improvement as well.

This issue, as Violet thwarts a liquor store robbery, Kevin and Cameron meet Paige for the first time at the scene of a crisis. We get to see our young heroes as they go into action for the first time – with unexpected results. It’s amusing when the character who doesn’t actually want to be a superhero turns out to be more competent at it than those that do, and it makes for a nice dichotomy. We also get to see a little more of Paige’s day-to-day life, which gives you more of a feeling for who she is as well. Kevin’s powers are still rather ill-defined, but a lot of that seems to be because he himself doesn’t really understand them that well just yet.

Seeing Violet in action gives us the impression that she may have the most interesting powers of our little group – a sort of telekinetic ability, but one that comes with consequences. Overall, though, the best thing about this comic remains to be the promise of a rather unique superhero world and the way these four very different characters will interact with it and with each other.

Gonzalo Martinez’s artwork has improved dramatically since the zero issue. A few of his poses are still a little stiff, but his page layout is much more dynamic and he’s done a solid job of capturing an old-fashioned superhero style, which is exactly what this title requires. I’m much more impressed here than I was with the preview – he’s clearly worked very hard to make himself better, and the work has paid off.

I’ve been a little wary about Alias lately – while I enjoy most of the company’s comics and am very supportive of their efforts to branch out to many different styles and genres, I’ve been worried that they’ve launched too much too fast. But as long as those launches are entertaining, it’s hard to complain too much. Super Teen*Topia is something I didn’t think was even possible anymore – a new angle on superheroes that doesn’t sacrifice the elements that make the genre so much fun in the first place. This is the kind of stuff that’s making it fun to read comic books again.

Super Teen*Topia at COMICS BULLETIN (U.S.A.)

STT writer, Kirk Kushin was interviewed by Gearalt Finlay for COMICS BULLETIN

Kirk Kushin: Still a Teen at Heart

By Gearalt Finlay

Kirk Kushin is going back to High School with Forcewërks Productions’ Super Teen*Topia. It is a teen adventure in the tradition of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Kirk sat down with Silver Bullet’s Gearalt Finlay to talk about the new series from Alias Entertainment.
Gearalt Finlay: What is Forcewërks Productions?

Kirk Kushin: Forcewërks is the organization I created with Mark R. Root Sr., to develop and produce our film, multi-media and comic book projects.

Finlay: Is this your first comics?

Kushin: No, we actually entered the comic publishing field a couple years ago when we licensed the rights for B.A.B.E. FORCEto another company. We decided to publish the series ourselves after their option expired. Hopefully your readers have enjoyed some of our past issues. You can check them out at www.babeforce.net.

Finlay: The art is by Ergo Comic’s Gonzalo Martínez, how did the two of you get together?

Kushin: I hired Gonzalo to do a short for Dr. Chaos: American Idyll and I really liked his style. But it was when I met him in person in San Diego that we really hit it off. He was interested in doing more B.A.B.E. FORCE work, he’s very partial to Agent Nicolette but I had something else in mind for him.
Finlay: Were you familiar with his work on Dr. Mortis, Claudia en la Red or Holed Up?

Kushin: I was familiar with his other work, but again, it was really the short he did for us that impressed me. I see a lot of Paul Smith in Gonzalo’s renderings and I’ve always liked that style, it’s reminiscent of animation and the characters are very affable.

Finlay: Gonzalo lives in Chile how do you get everything worked out shipping the scripts and art internationally?

Kushin: Actually if it wasn’t for the Internet this comic wouldn’t be possible. Even though he’s in Chile and I’m in California, it’s like being next door! I email him the full script and he emails me the pencil scans. Mark and I look them over, make any tweaks and send them back for inking. Laura Abella downloads the files directly from Gonzalo and makes them come to life with her colors. From there – they come back to Mark, who preps them to send to our letterer Michael David Thomas. From those proofs I adjust the script a bit and then we finalize and upload it to Alias.

Finlay: What sets Super Teen*Topia apart from all the other teen super hero comics?
Kushin: They don’t become X-Titans clones. There’s no jet, no danger room and no unstable molecules available to these sixteen year olds, so they have to manage as best they can. Some members of the cast don’t even want to super-heroes, so the book focuses on high school life as opposed to fighting some costumed villain every month. I keep calling it “Ferris Bueller in tights” and that’s a pretty good description.

Finlay: Who are the main characters?
Kushin: Paige is the solar powered girl-next-door. She loves horses and never causes her parents any grief. Until she develops powers. Cam is the water-wielding prankster who has no interest in ever putting on a costume and is the reluctant hero of the bunch. Diva is the tk powered life of the party and enjoys being.a diva. Kevin is the daydreaming comic-book fan whose powers don’t quite measure up to his fantasies.

Finlay: Is this similar to the movie Hero High?

Kushin: Actually I never saw the film, but I did see the trailer and it looked like a parody of the X-Men “lifestyle.” The characters in Super Teen*Topia aren’t part accepted members of the super-hero culture in their world, so there are no flying busses or anything like that. They are regular teens in a world where super-powers are fairly common.

Finlay: Are these costume heroes who go to the same high school, or just high school students with super powers?

Kushin: That’s a great question and something I’ve been hoping to elaborate on. I would have loved to have them all at the same school, but that seemed too improbable. It’s bad enough that Cam and Kevin are classmates, but I needed the common setting to draw from because Cam is very involved in student council and his life revolves around it. This frustrates Kev, who thinks they should be out trying to “make a difference.” Paige is home schooled and Diva attends a performing arts school, like you see in Fame. How they all come together is something we show in the first issue. But again, they don’t become a typical crime-fighting unit, it is more about having a peer group, finding a friend they can relate to.

Finlay: Is the series more comedy than action?

Kushin: Super Teen*Topia is very character based, so there are both light moments and lot of “teen angst.” Not the dark moody kind, but the “I love her why doesn’t she love me” kind. But this is a comic book with action, so we see powers in use both in the “real” life and in Kev’s fantasies.

Finlay: You have been quoted saying “If Stan Lee and John Hughes had a love child -Super Teen*Topiawould be the result.” It’s a great line but what does it actually mean?
Kushin: Thanks, I like that line too. It’s meant to convey this: when Stan Lee created the Fantastic Four forty years ago he offered reader’s a new look at the super-hero. I’m taking the Marvel mythology I grew up with and merging it with the “suburban teens coming of age” motif. This thinking stems from the question I’ve always had, “does everyone with powers have to don a costume and have a cosmic nemesis to be a hero?” Super Teen*Topia says no!

Finlay: You have a 99¢ issue zero listed in the current issue of previews, can you make any money from a 99¢ comic?

Kushin: If you believe in your product you have to be willing to stand behind it. And honestly it’s an insidious tactic because once I get hooked I’ll get your money for a long, long time!

Finlay: Is this an on-going series or a mini-series?

Kushin: Currently it is a bi-monthly title, but depending on sales we will adjust to a monthly schedule. It’s really up to all the readers. But based on the positive reaction I’ve gotten from the book so far, I’d say this series is going to be a big hit for Alias. If you look at the sales of Spider-Girl and Invincible there is a readership out there hungry for this type of story. 

Finlay: The series is billed as a “super soap” can we expect multiple storylines that end a different times?

Kushin: Yes, like all good soap operas there will be ongoing storylines as well as things that are wrapped up in one issue. Super Teen*Topia is like a TV show where you get one complete story per sitting, but there’s enough mythology to drag you deeper into the world. For example in issue #2 they go miniature golfing and all the action of the story happens during that one little outing. If that doesn’t sound like a fun comic, I don’t know what does! So plunk down your dollar and pick-up issue zero!

Holed Up at COMIC BOOK BIN (U.S.A.)

I was interviewed by LJ Douresseau for the section “Mr. Charlie Opens the Door” at COMIC BOOK BIN

Gonzalo Martinez is Richard Johnston’s partner-in-crime on RICH JOHNSTON’S HOLED UP. Martinez, a Chilean artist, joined Johnston, the creator of the popular “Lying in the Gutters” column for the website Comic Book Resources, for a three-issue mini-series that Avatar Press began publishing in April 2004. Several weeks ago, I sent Martinez a short round of questions and his responses make up Mr. Charlie #31:

Would you mind giving us a little background or biographical information about yourself?

GM: I was born in 1961 and I’ve living in Santigo de Chile since that date. I’m married with children (actually two lovely kids). I studied architecture and I worked for 15 years as an architect, working on comics on my spare time but last year I decided to leave my job and try to do comics as a main job.

What were the first comics that you were exposed to, and/or when did you first see American comics? What were your favorites?

GM: I have read comics since I was a little child (3 or 4 years old). My family used to read Spanish language versions of American comics, and not only American but also French, Spanish, Argentinean and Chilean comics. I used to love the Sunday comics pages where I read PRINCE VALIANT AND JOHNNY HAZZARD, for example. I was exposed mainly to DC Comics titles because they were published in Spanish by the Mexican publisher Novaro (I’m talking about the 60s and the 70s). I loved all of them you know, SUPERMAN, BATMAN, the JUSTICE LEAGUE [OF AMERICA], but I used to have a lot of fun with the weird titles: METAMORPHO, ULTRA DE MULTIMAN, THE CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN, the characters from Earth 2. I was a big fan of BLACKHAWK and I loved the short life of THE SECRET SIX.

When did you decide to become a comic book artist? How did you educate or train yourself to that end?

GM: Actually I like to think that I was born as a comic book artist. I’ve been doing comics before I learned to read, you know, on the tables and walls. I learned by myself, reading a lot of comics and standard literature and going to the movies. It was not easy because the strong Chilean comic publishing industry died suddenly from 1973 to 1975.

Who are the artists and cartoonists who influenced you and continue to influence you?

GM: It’s a long, long list, I can give you the names that right now come to my mind: Will Eisner, Mike Wieringo, Jim Steranko, Carl Barks, Michael Lark, John Bogdanove, Charles Schultz, the Hernandez bros, Jeff Smith, Mike Kaluta, Barry Windsor Smith, Pat McEown, Carlos Gimenez, Herge, Hermann, Edgar P. Jacobs, Hugo Pratt, Moebius, Max Carvajal, Martin Caceres. Uf! A long list. It doesn’t mean that I’d like to draw the way they do or that only their artistic skills influenced my pencil. They have been an influence in a more important and deep meaning. I’ve been influenced by their storytelling and the love they put in their work.

Have you done any professional work prior to getting the assignment to draw Holed Up?

GM: I’ve been published in my country since 1987 in a wide range of media, from independent comic magazines to newspapers doing comics, illustrations and comic strips. My strip HORACE & THE PROFESSOR was published since 1989 to 1999 in the main Chilean newspaper EL MERCURIO and in the comics banner of the Opera internet browser. I published a short story written by Matt Starnes on Digital Webbing Presents. You can take a look at some of that material at my on line portfolio http://www.ergocomics.cl/martinez.

How did you get the assignment to draw Holed Up?

GM: It was a case of the right submission email to the right publisher in the right moment.

Are you contributing anything to the story? How much freedom does Rich’s script give you to experiment or make changes when you need to make some story element work visually.

GM: I like to think of myself as a storyteller, my mission is to tell the story the better that I can. My main contribution to the story was to get involved in the story that Rich wanted to tell through his script. I tried to feel and understand what Rich wanted to say and tell that story through drawings. Well I admit that part was kind of easy because I felt a connection between our twisted minds. So I did not feel the need of adding or changing things. Sometimes I added or took out a panel or so because the pace, but basically I drew the script. Any detail that I added to the panels was intended to reinforce the story and give it a supporting background.

How familiar are you with American pop culture or with the segments of American culture that Rich satirizes: the American middle class, the so-called nuclear family unit, the American love or some would say obsession with firearms? Are you having to do a lot of research?

GM: This question deserves a 3 hours of friendly and interesting conversation sitting around a cafe table… but in few words: U.S.A. culture is a very strong culture and I’m not talking about the subject of Holed Up. I’m sure you’ll be surprised on how much we (South Americans, for example) know about U.S.A. history, culture, politics, art and social movements. The American movie, television, music, fashion and comic book industry is all over the world and those are strong cultural vehicles. So I am very familiar with the U.S.A. culture and I was very familiar with the specific subject of Holed Up. The research I did was based on the scenographic details. If you want to talk more about this point, just ask; I’ll be glad to talk about it. I love the sociological stuff.

Rich mentioned in a post at Newsarama that you’d added a few elements to the cover such as a belt buckle with a Confederate symbol on it and a KKK jack in the box? Do you know anything about that American subculture that many people think of as White Southerners? What do you know about the Confederacy or the KKK’s brutal history of murdering Black Americans?

GM: I think the last answer works for this too.

I ask because some people wouldn’t think that the KKK would be an appropriate subject for cartoon gags, though I’d love to have one of those jack in the boxes. So is this stuff just grist for the mill – less about substance and more about humor?

GM: This is one of the issues that humor has to face. There is always some topics that are difficult to touch because a lot of delicate reasons. Uf!… this is another subject that deserves a cafe conversation. I’d prefer you read the book first and then I’d love to talk about humor and parody. Anyway this book is a “The Simpsons,” “Married with Children,” “The Addams Family” kind of stuff, well… just with semiautomatics weapons.

THANKS, GONZALO: You can find out more about Holed Up at www.avatarpress.com/holedup/, the home of the Holed Up Army. The series is scheduled to wrap in July.

Holed Up at THE X-AXIS (U.S.A.)

Critic by Paul O’Brien at THE X-AXIS

HOLED UP #1

Avatar Press
April 2004
$3.50 US

Writer: Rich Johnston
Artist: Gonzalo Martinez
Editor-in-chief: 
William Christensen

Holed Up is a three issue miniseries by Rich Johnston, which is an interesting concept to start with.  In fact, Johnston’s been doing comics on and off for years, but this is far and away his most high profile work.
Avatar Press, bless ‘em, are probably about the only publisher anyone’s heard of who would touch a Rich Johnston comic with a radioactive bargepole.  Most of the rest of them would rather see him strung up – and even if Holed Up was by somebody else, it’s fairly safe to say that most American publishers would reject it on grounds of taste.  Such considerations have never troubled Avatar, which has led them over the last few years to publish a lot of rather good comics that larger publishers baulk at.  (And, of course, a lot of dreadful crap as well.)

The basic joke of Holed Up is that it’s a book about a happy sitcom family who just happen to be survivalists, gun freaks, and right-wing nuts.  Johnston’s compared it to The Addams Family, which sums it up rather neatly.  They’re a blissfully nuclear family, save that they’re all completely insane, live in an utterly insane subculture, and seem totally oblivious to their own oddities.  They’re clearly murderous lunatics, but any dark undercurrents are balanced by the sense that they live in a Loony Tunes world where you can shoot people in the head and they probably bounce back up.

It’s a gleefully demented and shamelessly offensive comic, which at times seems to be deliberately baiting controversy.  Of course, survivalists and militia types are a barn door target – and by going as insanely over the top as he does here, Johnston’s really working in the sort of territory that’s perhaps more suited to one or two page strips in Viz.  Despite the vestige of a plot, that’s effectively what Johnston is producing here – a string of gags around the theme.

It’s a one joke premise, but it holds up surprisingly well, with a mixture of daft sight gags and warped logic that moves into slightly more satirical territory.  There’s a particularly neat gag with the father telling his bemused kids that guns are not toys, only for the rest of the family to argue that Oh Yes They Are.  And in warped kind of way, they’re right – if you keep a gun because you enjoy shooting ranges then, however responsibly you use it, it kind of is a toy, surely?  Oh, and there’s also a fair amount of glib offensiveness, which generally works because all the characters are so insanely blase about the whole thing.

Artist Gonzalo Martinez does a fantastic job selling the sight gags, but his characters’ body language is often beautifully pitched as well.  There are some great hidden sight gags in the background, and he manages to bring a bizarre sense of reality to the whole thing.

It doesn’t really work as a story, which is the main problem.  The characters are just too broadly drawn to buy into the plot.  But the plot is little more than a vehicle to keep doing variations on the joke, and the joke hits more often than it misses.  A lot of people will hate the book – the survivalists it mocks, the PC lobby, 99% of the inhabitants of southern US states…  But it is genuinely funny, and while it may be aimed at a barn door target, it still hits effectively.

A lot better than I was expecting, to be honest.

Rating: A-

Holed Up at THE FOURTH RAIL (U.S.A.)

Critic made by Don McPherson for THE FOURTH RAIL

RICH JOHNSTON’S HOLED UP #1
Recommended (8/10)

Avatar Press
Writer: Rich Johnston
Pencils: Gonzalo Martinez
Editor: William Christensen
Price: $3.50 US

Ah, I love the smell of satire in the morning. Of course, as I type this, it’s not morning, it’s late at night. And satire doesn’t really have a smell, I suppose. If it did, I imagine it would be something like cow manure, wafting in the car window as you made your way through some seemingly untouched rural area. It’s something of an offensive odor, sure, but it’s also a reminder of basics truths we ignore day to day. Truths such as the fact that compared to the farmer who spread that natural fertilizer across his field, we pseudo-urban types have no idea what the meaning of a hard day’s work really is. Or that the burger we had for lunch may have shat that unseen shit.
No, I’ve not been drinking.

My point is this: you’ve gotta love satire, even if it’s dressed up in some sort of offensive way. Johnston’s merciless send-up of an American culture of violence and ignorance is far from subtle. It’s a slap in the face, and a welcome one at that.

Meet Bob and Sally. They’re a deliriously happy couple living an idyllic life in American suburbia. They’ve got three kids — a typically tortured teen and the always rambunctious twins — and Grannie lives upstairs. Oh, and they’ve go guns. Lots of guns. And grenades. Other ordinance, too. And Bob and Sally have decided it’s time to share the fun with their youngest kids, Ronnie and Nancy; after all, they’ve shared their prejudices and militia-mindedness. So the happy couple decides to take the whole clan down to Guns R Us.

Martinez’s name is a new one to me, but he hits it out of the park with this effort. His cartoony approach suits the over-the-top, satirical tone of these characters perfectly, and the level of detail he brings to bear is more than a little impressive. His style here strikes me as an unusual cross between those of Gary (City of Silence) Erskine and Batton Supernatural Law) Lash. I think the visual highlight of the book is Grannie’s introduction. The energy and dementia that Martinez injects into that scene really makes the most of that brief and surreal moment in Johnston’s script.

I can’t help but wonder if this book is funnier for those on the outside looking in. In other words, I wonder if this is funnier for us non-Americans. Make no mistake… this is an anti-American book. British writer Rich Johnston spends the whole issue preaching about What’s Wrong With You People. Does he paint the entire U.S. populace with the same brush? Certainly not. He takes aim at those Americans… well, those who take actual aim with gleeful abandon.

My favorite aspect of this book isn’t the humor, but rather Johnston’s refusal to back away from any material, no matter how taboo in the minds of the politically correct. He incorporates incomfortable subject matter and gets the reader to laugh at it as well. At the same time, though, that disconcerting tone remains, and it’s meant to. This isn’t just about poking fun at America. It’s about revealing the dangers of the culture explored through exaggeration here. The reader should be amused but disturbed as well.