Avatar Press News & Updates August 16, 2005
In this message: October 2005 Solicited releases, Christensen talks Escape of the Living Dead, Pulido on Jason X and Species, Wolfer discusses Escape of the Living Dead, Avatar is moving
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SOLICITED FOR OCTOBER FROM AVATAR
Solicitations for October Releases from Avatar Press are now available online and it’s the biggest month of mayhem ever from Avatar. Here’s a brief rundown:
* Jason X Special #1 – Brian Pulido, Sebastian Fiumara. A torrent of high-tech terror!
* Escape of the Living Dead #1 – John Russo, Dheeraj Verma. Zombies from one of the men who practically invented the genre with Night of the Living Dead.
* Species Special #1 – Brian Pulido, Mico Suayan. A tale of terror that puts the fatal back in fatal beauty.
* Nightmare on Elm Street: Paranoid #2 – Brian Pulido, Juan Jose Ryp. Freddy turns the tables on the latest attempt to halt his reign of terror.
* Friday the 13th: Bloodbath #2 – Pulido, Mike Wolfer. Teenagers learn the terrifying secret of their gathering at Camp Tomorrow.
* Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Grind #2 – Pulido, Daniel HDR. The Jefferson Girl’s Choir… hunted by Leatherface!
* Brian Pulido’s Lady Death: The Wicked #1 – Pulido, Richard Ortiz. Lady Death at the mercy of Goth demoness Pariah?
* Brian Pulido’s Gypsy #3 – Pulido, Paulo Siqueira. With a monster terrorizing the town, Antoinette must come to grips with her own shocking transformation.
And much more. You can get complete information and graphics for these and all our October releases at
www.avatarpress.com/2005solic/10/
These items should be available for order from your local retailer now. Please support your local retailer and Avatar by asking him to order these items for you. If you can’t get these Avatar Press items locally, they are available from our direct sales agent at
www.comiccavalcade.com/2005solic/10/
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5 QUESTIONS FOR AVATAR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF WILLIAM CHRISTENSEN ON ESCAPE OF THE LIVING DEAD
With Escape of the Living Dead set to debut in October, Avatar’s William Christensen tells us how this project came together, what it’s like to work with a creator of one of the most legendary horror films ever, and why he likes zombies.
Q: Zombie comics and movies have been particularly popular over the past couple of years. What makes Escape of the Living Dead stand out among the shuffling masses?
WILLIAM CHRISTENSEN: We’ve wanted to do more zombie comics for a long time, and this is the project that finally grabbed me by the throat and dragged me down into the teaming throngs of the undead. We did Joe R. Lansdale and Tim Truman’s Dead Folks awhile back, and that also kind of gave me the appetite to do more. But with the rising number of zombie books and films out there over the past couple years, it kind of created a situation where I felt we should bide our time and wait for the opportunity to do something really special and unique in the genre. Doing a zombie comic with one of the guys who literally helped define the genre with Night of the Living Dead is that opportunity we’ve been waiting for.
Q: The Night of the Living Dead tree has grown a few different twisted and gnarled branches over the past few decades. Where does Escape of the Living Dead fit in?
WC: Right at the root. Make no mistake, this is that same brand of stark, relentless horror that Night of the Living Dead practically invented. We really wanted to go back to the source in terms of the tone, the tension that the pacing creates, and the waves of fear that flows from that. So spiritually, Night of the Living Dead is our bible. Chronologically, the solicitation blurb gives you some idea of the timing – 1971: It’s been three years since the blood-soaked night that the dead rose from their graves, attacking and devouring the living. Now, the legacy of that horrific and unexplained event is about to be unleashed once again upon an unsuspecting world.
Q: What’s working with John Russo like?
WC: I first got in touch with John a few months ago to ask him about Night of the Living Dead stuff and I knew within 2 minutes that I had to work with the guy. He’s got that edge in his voice that creators get when they’re burning to get their ideas out into the world. I’m pretty sure if he had gotten his start maybe 10 or 15 years later, he’d have become a comic book creator, because I think the situation in our industry suits him better. His work turned out the best when he was working on an indy type of project with a few other dedicated and talented individuals who had this intense desire to unleash their creation on the public. We are recreating that kind of situation for him. No studio goons or any other kinds of business suits who think of your work as product and push and pull you in places you don’t want to go and generally get in between you and your audience to screw things up. Just a few dedicated people who really burn to unleash this thing on the world. That’s indy comics in general and it’s definitely Avatar specifically. We’ve brought in Mike Wolfer to help us put John’s material into comics form. Mike’s been creating horror comics for over 15 years now, most recently with our launch of Friday the 13th, and is also well known for his collaborations with Warren Ellis. Mike is an absolute master of pacing on the comic page as readers of his work in Strange Killings can attest. That’s exactly what we need for a zombie comic. If we were making this as a movie, Mike would maybe be called the assistant director. He’s sweating the details and making sure this all gets put together the right way.
Q: What about series artist Dheeraj Verma? He’s a new name to most comic fans.
WC: Dheeraj has worked with us for a year or two now on some horror-related projects such as short stories in Joe R. Lansdale’s By Bizarre Hands, and I’ve been wanting to get him on a feature-length project for awhile now. He walks that fine line between polish and raw emotion that is perfect for horror but very rare in a comic artist. In a way he reminds me of another artist who has worked in this general area, Chaos! great Steven Hughes. His work is not that similar stylistically, but in the way that he spills his guts on every page. His line just naturally creates drama. He has an approach that makes him a great fit for a zombie comic.
Q: Are there more zombie comics in Avatar’s future?
WC: Definitely. Zombies are a staple of horror, and horror is one of the things we do best. Creators we’ve worked with such as Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Brian Pulido, Garth Ennis, Mike Wolfer, and Tim Vigil have produced some of the best horror comics ever created. Horror has been one of the cornerstones of what Avatar does since the beginning of the company, and I have a feeling zombies will be hounding us to the bitter end. In the long term, we’ve got something in the works from a major creative team. And if Escape of the Living Dead finds its audience like I think it will, you’ll be tasting that particular brand of terror again just when you least expect it.
For more info and artwork on Escape of the Living Dead, see
www.avatarpress.com/escape/
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BRIAN PULIDO TALKS JASON X AND SPECIES
Best known for the creation of Lady Death and the rest of the Chaos! cast of characters, Brian Pulido has also recently made waves with his work on the launch of Avatar’s New Line House of Horror comic book line – Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elms Street, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In October, Pulido continues to unleash the icons of the film world into the arena of comic book horror with Jason X and Species.
Q: You’re best known for working with your own characters. Does your approach to the work differ when you’re working with horror icons such as Jason, Freddy, Leatherface, and now Jason X and Species?
BRIAN PULIDO: The approach is different, but I have had experience working with other groups’ properties like WWE, Megadeth and ICP (Insane Clown Posse). If I take the gig, my commitment is to give the fans the characters they know and love. It’s not my job to change them. It is my job to give readers an unexpected ride, though.
For example, in Jason X, I took all the locations from the movie and all the technology they introduced and messed with it in a way readers may not expect. It is still Uber-Jason, he’s still a driven killing machine, but the elements around him have been changed a bit. You’ll have to read it to see.
Q: Do you think you’re connecting with largely the same audience on these books, or is it a different readership?
BP: I’m figuring each character has a separate fan base, but I’m sure there’s some overlap.
Q: Many writers feel that horror is particularly difficult to do in comics – unlike film, to a degree the reader controls the pace at which he reads the story in comics, and it’s also difficult to scare the reader with a surprising or shocking event because the reader will usually get a glimpse of upcoming panels as he’s reading. Do you think that comic horror can be as effective as film horror?
BP: Horror is a “theater of the mind” genre. It is a way to externalize people’s fears, so it works great with comics. While readers do get a glimpse of what is to come, if you’re a clever writer, you have the good stuff happen on the page turns. The reader flips over the page, then—BLAM something unexpected happens. Or something gross and insane.
Q: How do you approach the particular demands of writing comic book horror?
BP: Well, it is a given that you can’t use sound as effectively as you can in a movie. In a movie it helps to create such great mood, tone and texture. But what’s common to all forms of horror is the intent of the storyteller.
I want to give readers their money’s worth. We don’t have budgets in comic storytelling, so we can have expensive “effects”. My Jason X story would cost twice the budget of the original movie, but hey, it’s a comic, so its cool to go wild.
Q: Combining elements of science fiction and horror can be very powerful when done well (Alien is a good example), but it is considered by some to be a difficult combination to pull off. You’ve dabbled in blending these genres over the years, what makes this combination work in books like Jason X and Species? What makes it a challenge?
BP: Jason X is like Friday the 13th meets Terminator. Species is a cousin to the Aliens franchise. Both stories are steeped in horror and Sci Fi equally, so it isn’t too tough to pull off.
Horror comes in many forms. There’s the easy to spot supernatural stuff, but then there’s the crafty stuff like Jaws, Duel, Alien, maybe Marathon Man. They’re all horror stories, but they use different trappings and environments to get their point across. The point is simple: some individual or group is victimized and the victim either dies or survives. Normalcy is either restored or crushed or some variance between the two.
Horror plays with root fears. For some reason, in Sci Fi, storytellers like to throw action, adventure and heroic elements in. That is not horror. That is the difference between Alien and Aliens. Aliens is a action adventure story. A great one, mind you, but still action adventure with horrific elements.
Riding the fine line between the genres is the challenge. In my stories, I’m keeping them rooted in horror with Sci Fi overtones.
Q: Uber-Jason of Jason X has obvious physical differences from the original Jason, but is the force that drives him the same?
BP: In my view, nothing has changed. If anything, I’ve strengthened his original intent. I bring back the spirit of his mother to drive him harder. She’s always there screaming in his ear to kill, kill, KILL!
Q: We know from working with you over the years that you often lay out very specific input into the visuals of your books, including the look and feel of the characters and the world they live in. What’s it like for you to work with a saga like Species, which already has well-established and distinctive design work by H.R. Giger?
BP: My job is to follow what Giger laid out. I don’t want to change a thing of the monster’s design. It is perfect onto itself. I revere all these monsters. Why would I want to change them?
But in my descriptions, I help the artist by pointing out defining moments of style in the movies, whether it is the lighting, set decoration, mood or tone.
For example, in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, the look and lighting is so distinct and so fantastic, it would be a waste not to tap into it. The director Marcus Nespal and the Director of Photography Daniel Pearl really did an amazing job on the look of the Hewitt house, the slaughterhouse, even the forest surrounding all of it. In my scripts, I encourage the artist to grab that stuff.
For more info and artwork on Species and Jason X, see
www.avatarpress.com/jasonx/
www.avatarpress.com/species/
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HORROR, ESCAPE, AND THE LAW
(How a lifetime of horror consumption led to working with John Russo with input from the Allegheny County Sheriff’s Office)
by Mike Wolfer
With the purchase in 1971 of my first issue of Famous Monsters Of Filmland, my life-long research into the world of horror began. Utilizing magazines and after-school viewings of Dialing-For-Dollars movies, I retained every bit of horror knowledge that my 8 year-old mind could contain, but one movie eluded my “seen it” list. A movie that was, let’s face it, notorious. The two-color revival posters that graced the foyer of the local theater heralding the movie’s midnight showings were ghastly and had I been old enough to buy a ticket, I still wouldn’t be able to muster the courage to attend. Word-of-mouth on the playground had done its job to make me too damn scared to see “Night Of The Living Dead”. Me. The 4th grade horror movie connoisseur.
Now, it’s 1971 again, terror grips the Pennsylvania countryside, there’s not a high-powered weapon in sight and the living are being murdered and devoured by the dead… And I’m right in the middle of it. Ten terror-filled years passed before the sequel to “Night Of The Living Dead” again shocked moviegoers and now, at last, we’ll see the course of events that led to the destruction of modern civilization and the genesis of the reign of the undead.
It’s a supreme honor to work from John Russo’s original screenplay for “Escape Of The Living Dead”. In adapting John’s words into the format of a comic book script, I’ve provided written elaboration to visualize each scene as would a storyboard artist. In doing so, I’ve been given the opportunity to enhance the power of John’s descriptions by supplying artist Dheeraj Verma with visual pacing, camera angles, character and set designs… All of the small details that are usually left to a director’s discretion. And Dheeraj has done a fantastic job of bringing the project to life with a shocking realism that leaves nothing to the imagination. This is classic horror with a modern sensibility.
“Escape Of The Living Dead” is really scary. It’s also a lot of fun because the story is set in 1971, which gives it a unique, retro feel that sets it apart from nearly every other zombie movie I can think of. We’re being incredibly faithful to the era, from lead-zombie Deadhead’s beer tab headband to the automobiles and clothing of that time period. We even received invaluable assistance from the actual Allegheny County Sheriff’s Office, who provided us with archive photos of police vehicles and uniforms that were in use in the early 1970s. An officer told me over the phone that when the Sheriff heard what we were working on, he instructed the officer to give me whatever I wanted. To receive help like that from a law enforcement agency is pretty impressive, but when you consider the reputation and legacy of John Russo and “Night Of The Living Dead”, it’s not at all surprising.
For more info and artwork on Escape of the Living Dead, see
www.avatarpress.com/escape/
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AVATAR IS MOVING
Avatar Press is making a much-needed move into larger offices. Please make note of the new address info:
Avatar Press
515 N. Century Blvd.
Rantoul, IL 61866
Those of you who mail in your orders to our direct sales agent should also make note of this new info:
Comic Cavalcade
515 N. Century Blvd.
Rantoul, IL 61866
phone 217-893-9670
fax 217-893-9671
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links of note:
main site: www.avatarpress.com
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The contents of this release are TM & ©2005 Avatar Press and/or its respective creators, copyright holders, or licensors. Feel free to re-post this information where appropriate. Contact Avatar Press editor in chief William Christensen at william@avatarpress.net for more information.