Writer Sara Kenney and editor Karen Berger come onto the show this week to talk their new Image Comics title, Surgeon X. The pair shares what the book is all about, its origin story, how Berger joined up and what made it the one she wanted to return to comics with, the learning curve in going from film/TV to comics and from DC/Vertigo to Image, how the rest of the creative team - artist John Watkins, colorist James Devlin and letterer Jared K. Fletcher - joined the book, balancing realism with entertainment value, and a discussion about why having app for the comic was a move they wanted to do.
Cartoonist John Allison joins Off Panel for the first time this week to talk his work writing Giant Days and writing/drawing webcomics like Bad Machinery and Scary Go Round. It's a conversation that goes all over the place, as Allison discusses keeping the continuity of his webcomics work straight, how his DIY origins and page limits impacted his work on Giant Days, fostering a relationship between readers and characters, character acting in art, world building, properly handling humor, how the webcomic world has changed as the internet has, and much more.
Newsarama Editor Chris Arrant joins the show this week to talk writing about comics. Arrant discusses his comics journalism origin story, whether "comics journalism" is a proper term, the difference between his approach and that of his peers, how he made writing about comics his career, what makes for a good interview, how the landscape of writing about comics has changed over the years, recent redesigns and changes at comic sites, adapting to the changing nature of the internet, and more. As a special change of space, the five questions at the end? They're of Chris interviewing David, as opposed to the usual.
Cartoonist Andrew MacLean joins the show to talk about one of my favorite books, his Image Comics title Head Lopper. Maclean shares how the book came together, the quarterly format and doing things his way, his hyper DIY mentality, the Mike Mignola connection and influence, his creative process, making a good villain and action sequence, holding things back from readers, and more.
Writer Jim Zub joins the show this week to talk his brand new Image title that launches this week, Glitterbomb. Zub talks what Glitterbomb is all about, the horror of the reality of the story, how he works out hard storytelling beats, the amazing that is artist Djibril Morissette, how this book differs from the rest of his work, the motives of the book's lead, building hype without spoiling your own book, the incredible creative team, how important promoting your own work is in comics, before closing with five questions about poutine, Canada, Overwatch and more.
Important note: there were technical difficulties in recording this episode, so there are some issues in the sound quality.