@’s by Legendary Comics’ Bob Schreck !!!
AMBUSH BUG (BUG): So it’s an honor to meet you, sir. I’m here with Bob Schreck and you’re here talking about Legendary Comics. Is that correct?BOB SCHRECK (BS): Correct.
BUG: Okay, and you made a big announcement here yesterday at the Con. What was your announcement?
BS: Well we have a book that we have coming out in September of this year, it’s our first original IP as they call it, an original concept created by Thomas Tull and built with Thomas and Matt Wagner. It’s called THE TOWER CHRONICLES and we revealed that on the Nerdist panel yesterday, the first cover of the four episodes, the four volumes that are coming out and the first cover is by Jim Lee, none other than The Jim Lee. We got a lot of nice “oohs” and “aahs” at the panel. Everybody really dug it. It’s four issues, 72 pages each. I think they are trade paperbacks, soft cover, and I have three other covers that I have to do and while it’s difficult to try to top Jim Lee and impossible, I think that Jim will be represented and very proud of his peers that are handling the other covers. He’s in good company.
BUG: Good. So for those who don’t know about this story, what’s THE TOWER CHRONICLES all about?
BS: It’s basically about a supernatural bounty hunter that…he’s got a website and a lawyer that handles all of his business. He’s not cheap. He costs a lot of money. You’ve got to grease a lot of palms to be able to get into the most secretive rooms at the Vatican or wherever and get out alive and with an artifact that they don’t want you to have, and he’s searching the globe for various and sundry ancient artifacts that will A) help whoever his client is and B) also help whatever it is with his own private conundrum, his own back story. He’s kind of Richard Kimble from THE FUGITIVE. He’s got an interesting backstory that we don’t want to give away, but that’s what makes you gravitate to the character. He’s a badass and he gets it done, but he’s also got an ulterior motive and another mission. He’s not totally evil. It does cost money to do what he wants to do, but he’ll do some pro bono work every now and then for people that don’t have the scratch that deserve his services.
BUG: Great. What about this story made you feel that it was a good story for Legendary to publish?
BS: Well Thomas has a lot of great ideas. What I think makes every great story a great story isn’t the story, it’s the character. We were just talking about the movie ALIEN, you’re with Ripley the whole time, you know? That’s what John Tower is about. John Tower is a guy that very early on you’d go “Oh, wait a minute, I see him. I understand him.” Even though there’s mystery and it takes time for you to get his full backstory, the minute Thomas and I and Matt Wagner were sitting down talking, we saw him. He was practically in the room with us. We could feel who he was. So that to me, in every story I’ve ever worked on, if you don’t have somewhere to hang your hat, then you’re not engaged. Every plot’s been done. It’s how well you look at that plot and find a shard in that prism that’s never been done before. But even if you go “Hey, wow, I have this great idea for a vampire thing that’s never been done,” but if you don’t have a Van Helsing, or someone to relate to, you don’t feel anything for the character. Even Dracula is sympathetic. “I don’t like to kill people, but I can’t help it.” The shard or the interesting part of the vampire myth that no one’s ever looked at before, it’s nice, it’s interesting.BUG: Or a Renfield or a Lucy or one of those guys, somebody to latch onto.
BS: Yeah, they have to have some empathy for those people and that’s the trick of a good writer. That’s why when Thomas said to me, “I want to work with somebody who really knows what they are doing,” and I said, “Matt Wagner. He knows what he’s doing and he knows how to world build.” If you read GRENDEL, there were a lot of Grendels during the history of Grendel, but Brian Lee…Krisitne Spyre…all of them you went “Oh, wow,” because he knew how to develop a character and make you care.
BUG: Let’s talk about Wagner. How did he become involved in this whole process?
BS: Well I’ve known Matt since probably 1976 or 1977. I used to run Creation Conventions, so he would set up very young as he was going to college, and then I went to work for Marvel and then I went to work for Comico and Matt was at Comico. So we go way back. I marketed MAGE. I marketed GRENDEL. So when Thomas said to me “I don’t need a little wilting flower in the room, I want a writer who’s going to push back and tell me ‘You know what? Thomas, that’s not a good idea. I have a better idea…’ They better be able to back it up.” I went “Matt. You’re either going to like it or you’re not. He’s not going to pull any punches. He’s going to tell you what he thinks.” And I was there for the meetings and he watched Matt go “I don’t think that’s a really great way to go” and Thomas was like “Alright, let’s hear it.” They just got on. They caught on like a house on fire. Probably by the second meeting Thomas called me and said, “Man, can we clone Matt? I’d like to work with him on eight projects.” So they are really getting along great and I know it. Matt knows his stuff. He knows how to build characters. He knows how to research…he’s been dealing with the occult and mystical stuff for years and years with Sandman from DC, Batman…so it was an easy no brainer, and then the same thing when all three of us got together and said “Well, Schreck, who do you think should draw?” I said, “We’re going to do Simon Bisley. That’s it.” They all went “Yeah, that’s right.” The minute we told Bisley the idea, he was like “I’m in.”BUG: I haven’t heard from him for a while, but I’ve been a huge fan of Bisley’s from way back.
BS: He’s been doing work on CONSTANTINE over at DC and he’s started…actually, my assistant there, Brandon Monteclaire, this is why you always keep your assistants young and on the ball, because I ain’t getting any younger. He’s like “You know, Simon is really great and his schedule has been back on for a while…” He was having schedule problems. He was like “You should put him on the covers for CONSTANTINE” and I was looking at his newest work going “Let’s go” and he’s actually done interiors as well where they go straight from his pencils and it’s beautiful stuff, so yeah, this is going to be a big, epic book for him.
BUG: Cool.
BS: There’s a lot of work going on and it’s being inked by Rodney Ramos and it’s going to be colored by Ryan Brown and Ryan is handling Simon’s work in such a way that it almost looks like it’s painted by Simon. It really is super modeled and super beautiful and you wouldn’t know that…I mean, it’s computer painting, but it looks like a hand-painted Simon Bisley piece. Every time we get new pages either penciled, inked, or colored, I get another email from Matt going “Oh man!” He’s very excited.BUG: Very cool. So going into this you mentioned that you had such a long history in comics, why is this the right time for Legendary Comics?
BS: Well, you know, you’ve watched the world. I mean look what’s happening and who helped it. I mean clearly Frank Miller’s influence and Alan Moore’s influence in the 80’s has brought us to where we are. Clearly the movie world and listening to Thomas Tull at Legendary, because they made it work…other bigger studios had trouble making that work. You have to really trust the material and you have to trust a guy like Christopher Nolan to do a great job. He did and does. So there’s a lot of other companies out there that are looking at it like spaghetti with a wall, they’re just grabbing whatever they can and throwing it. That’s not what Thomas does and that’s not what I do. You don’t always succeed, but every effort I try to make in my entire career has been from a really good place. “Let’s make this a great book.” Sometimes you fail, but I’ve got a pretty good track record. I’ll stand on it and I think Thomas has had an amazing track record, so when he contacted me through Frank Miller, because we’ve all worked together in various ways...I’ve known Frank almost 30 years and Thomas of course with THE DARK KNIGHT stuff and 300. It was “Hey, let’s do this, but Schreck, your job is to make sure these are comic books. Four square, standing on their own. They are not just fodder for another medium. They’ve got to be comics.” Of course, many times they do translate over to television or whatever, but I’ve got to make sure they are solid comics. That’s my job. I’m the gatekeeper and we not only have material that Thomas is generating, that Thomas is creating and then building with the likes of Matt Wagner, but I’m also brining him. I’ll say “I’ve got this writer and I’ve got this idea, what do you think?” I’ve been pretty happy with this. Thomas will read it and go “You got it, Schreck, that’s what I’m looking for.” It’s like “good,” so it’s been a really good working relationship.
BUG: Good. Going into the next year and everything with this being the first release, do you have other releases that are going to be coming out? Not to have you get into any surprises right now, but are there plans to expand?
BS: Oh yeah, I’ve got about nine projects in various stages of either negotiations or beginning production. Every time I say, “This is enough, I can’t hold any more” another great project comes my way and I’m like “Oh no, what am I going to do? How can I turn this down?” But yeah, we’ve got several books in the works.
BUG: Various different genres?
BS: A couple of different genres and you know, Thomas is making a superhero…I have the superhero bug in me, but I’ve been doing this for a long time, so I see tights and leotards and it’s like “eh, whatever.” But we all agree that we would love to do one. There’s certainly more than enough of them out there already, so if we are going to do it it had better be the best damn super hero comic that anybody’s ever seen and that’s a tough challenge, because it’s been done. Again, I go back to the prism and the shard. I don’t know if you remember THE ELEMENTALS in the 80’s, but it’s always that incredible reveal where you read THE ELEMENTALS and you find out the supervillian is Lazarus and he’s really angry at Carpenter…nobody thought of Lazarus as being a villain before and that’s what we will be looking for, that one little moment where we go “Oh my God” infused with a character that you care about. The superhero genre now has gotten a lot darker over the years. I mean, Superman is this boy scout…I say it all the time. The sports pages are where? In the back of the newspaper. Everybody wants to see the grim and the nasty, so Batman always gets the love. So we really don’t know what it will be, but like I said, if we go there it’s going to be good.
BUG: Well, I can’t wait to see it. I just took a look at the page that you guys premiered yesterday. It looks fantastic. I can’t wait to check THE TOWER CHRONICLES out. So it’s going to be coming out when? BS: September of this year and it will be bimonthly. It’s basically three story arcs. This first arc is comprised of four 72 page trade paper backs with the cel flap covers. They’re a little floppy, but they are square bound. They are full size trade paperbacks. Price, we haven’t decided yet, but we always wait to price it when it posts to the previews. But September and bimonthly thereafter.
BUG: Fantastic. I look forward to checking it out and hopefully when it gets closer to completion we can check it out at Ain’t It Cool.
BS: I would be honored to be on the site. I go there often. It’s a great place to have some fun and get some news.
BUG: Well, great. Thank you so much for your time and have a great trip. How’s the con been for you this year?
BS: It’s a great show. I haven’t been to Chicago now for five years. I used to run shows here in the 70’s and 80’s, so I love this town. I love how much the comic book medium is still very, very important here with people who actually read them and buy them that come to this show.
BUG: That’s kind of new at these conventions. (laughs)
BS: And the crowd is always great. I mean, there’s no better crowd than our crowd. They are the sweetest, nicest people on Earth. They’re very open and seem cool. They’re not jerks and it’s always an up vibe. The night before the show started over here in the bar many from the industry were hanging out and I’m tired, this is my third show in a row and I’ve got one more to do next week and yet you still can’t walk away without having a good time. It’s a lot of fun.
BUG: Well, thanks for your time. Best of luck to you and Legendary. We’ll talk soon.
BS: Thank you very much. I appreciated it.
BUG: Look for THE TOWER CHRONICLES from Legendary Comics coming your way this fall!
Ambush Bug is Mark L. Miller, original @$$Hole/wordslinger/reviewer/co-editor of AICN Comics for over ten years. He has written comics such as MUSCLES & FIGHTS, MUSCLES & FRIGHTS, VINCENT PRICE PRESENTS TINGLERS & WITCHFINDER GENERAL, THE DEATHSPORT GAMES, WONDERLAND ANNUAL 2010 & NANNY & HANK (soon to be made into a feature film from Uptown 6 Films). He is also a regular writer for FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND & has co-written their first ever comic book LUNA: ORDER OF THE WEREWOLF (to be released in October 2012 as an 100-pg original graphic novel). Mark has just announced his new comic book miniseries GRIMM FAIRY TALES PRESENTS THE JUNGLE BOOK from Zenescope Entertainment to be released in March 2012.Proofs, co-edits & common sense provided by Sleazy G
