WEEKEND READING: Chris Ryall, Twilight, Robert Maguire, Trevor Von Eeden and Jim Shooter

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials

Lots of great stuff all over the internets this past week. Chris Ryall at IDW gives a chat, Jim Shooter plays 20 questions with the fans, young women try to dress as sexy super-heroines, and Trevor Von Eeden is just a really great artist whose work is fun to look at. Let’s roll it out:

CHRIS RYALL’S BAT BOY: Over at Bookgasm, one of my regular stops, Joshua Jabcuga sits down with Chris Ryall at IDW to chat about Donald Westlake, Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight and the upcoming Weekly World News Universe of Bat Boy and Ed Anger. Even better, Chris has love for the Twilight fans who ravaged Comic Con International that other industry types should embrace: “I love anything that brings in a wider audience, and ideally, at a show like this, that audience who might only be drawn there by Twilight will then see something else that catches their eye and gets them into comics. I don’t know if that happened this year to any big degree, but the exposure can’t hurt. I certainly see it as a good thing.” More at the link; it’s worth reading the whole thing.

OF COSTUMES AND COSPLAYERS: You know you love it when too many women dress up as Slave Leia from Return of the Jedi. The boys – oh so obviously the boys – at Cinematical have a fun slideshow of some of the costumed women from this year’s Comic Con International. I’d write more, but I know you’ve already clicked the link.

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CHRIS ULM: The Ultraverse and Appy Entertainment

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Video Games

Chris Ulm was the guy who came up with the idea of the Ultraverse. I should know - I watched him do it. When Bob Jacob merged his Acme Interactive with Malibu Comics and became co-president with Scott Rosenberg, he wanted some ideas about what Malibu could do in its post-Image Comics years. “And bring me steak, not sizzle!” he demanded like a little kid who wanted the biggest piece of birthday cake.

Ulm pitched a couple of ideas. One was “Hire Jim Shooter” (which the company almost did, 2 1/2 times over the years). The second was the idea that became the Ultraverse (though its working title was the Megaverse, until we discovered that it was already a trademarked universe). Ulm served as Editor-In-Chief of the Ultraverse and co-created Rune with Barry Windsor-Smith.

After Marvel bought Malibu Comics, Ulm and took a look at his employment agreement and realized he could do something else. He went north and jumped into video games at Oddworld Inhabitants (check out Abe’s Exoddus and Munch’s Oddysee!). After Oddworld, he went to work farther south and joined the game company Sammy which later spun off into his own High Moon Studios (where he worked on the Bourne franchise and created the Darkwatch vampire western video game). Last year, he stepped away from Sammy and with some of his Sammy pals, including one-time comic book writer Paul O’Connor, launched Appy Entertainment – a game company that makes applications, apps, for the iPhone.

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Q&A: Aaron Lopresti on Wonder Woman, Sludge, and Fantastical Creatures

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Interviews, DC Comics, Independent

Aaron Lopresti may be the regular artist on DC’s Wonder Woman with writer Gail Simone, but he also likes to hobnob with Hobbits, yearn for Yetis and bound after Bigfoot in his new book “Fantastical Creatures Field Guide: How to Hunt Them Down and Draw Them Where They Live” from Watson-Guptil. I met him back in 1993 when Steve Gerber and Chris Ulm picked him to be the regular artist on the Steve’s Ultraverse title Sludge. Aaron has since worked on Spider-Man, The X-Men, Hulk, The Avengers, Batman, Plastic Man, Green Lantern, Superboy, Xena, Star Trek, Gen 13, and Mystic. He even took the plunge and self-published Atomic Toybox and CHIX. You can always find him at Comic Con International in San Diego where he shares a booth with Terry Dodson, but today, you can find him here:

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