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On Playfeed: Project Natal launching on October says UK’s Jonathan Ross

Barry Blair and Aircel Comics

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Independent

Demon HunterBarry Blair passed away earlier this week. A very talented writer-and-artist, he was one of the founders of Aircel Comics with the backing of Ken Campbell. The imprint got its name from Campbell’s refrigeration company. Barry had a house stockpiled with a number of artists eager to create comics and they were all put to work churning out books for Aircel with titles like Elflord, Samurai and Warlock 5.

For a couple of years their books were very successful and featured work by Blair, Pat McEown, Dale Keown, Dave Cooper, Jim Somerville, Guang Yap and others during the black and white boom of the mid-1980s. When the market soured, Campbell was eager to shed the imprint. Rather than shut it down, he made a deal with Malibu Comics President Scott Rosenberg to take it over. Malibu was the parent company to Eternity Comics.

As part of the deal, Malibu would run the imprint and Barry would provide 4 books a month - a new book every Tuesday either by him or his studiomates or in some form of collaboration. In addition, Malibu would also sponsor Barry’s green card - he wanted to move out of Canada to New York City and found a place in the shadow of the United Nations building. For a couple of years, Malibu published a wide variety of Aircel books - Barry’s own adventure books, Dave Cooper’s wild parodies, and even a Jim Somerville zombie book.

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Steve Perry: Aliens, Predators and Men In Black

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Dark Horse Comics

steveperryNot too long ago, I was hired by a big time TV producer to ghostwrite a book for him. He had a screenplay that had been sent around and remained unsold and he wanted to try working backwards—convert the screenplay into a book, sell the book, get the book optioned and then sell the screenplay. Stranger things have happened, and he had enough contacts and name-value to give it a strong shot.

I read the screenplay and we met for lunch at one of those nearly trendy places where you’ll likely see Bronson Pinchot eating an egg-white omelet and Tori Spelling ordering half of a flour tortilla. The intended audience for the book was to be Young Adult. We discussed tone and he was very clear—somewhere between Holes and Men In Black. I’d seen the whole Holes movie (and read the book), and I’d seen both of the Men In Black movies. (Today’s MIB trivia:I had also been the editor of the original Men In Black comics back in the stone age of comics and still keep in touch with MIB creator Lowell Cunningham.)

After the meeting, I went to a used bookstore as quickly as possible—except that they don’t exist anymore. So I went to Amazon and ordered a copy of the Men In Black novelization. I wanted to see how someone else had done the job with a similar property. I liked what I read and was impressed by how many little details the author had added while keeping the tone of the movie. He had also done an excellent job of capturing the personalities of J and K, which is no easy task. That author was Steve Perry, and I studied his approach the way others might Stephanie Meyer or a certain Rowling. Without realizing it, he was helping me follow in his footsteps.

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Read More | Steve Bissette's Blog

Q&A: MARC BERNARDIN on Monster Attack Network and Genius

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Interviews

Genius
MARC BERNARDIN is a Senior Editor at Entertainment Weekly. He edits the Galleries that you find on EW.com, so he says, “whenever you see ‘25 Best Action Movies Starring Danes’ or ‘13 Peruvian Documentaries’ that’s my fault.” By his own admission, he’s also their Resident Geek. “I get called into every meeting that involves comic book, sci-fi, videogames, or general nerd subject matter.” Despite the turmoil in magazine publishing Marc admits he’s “survived the bloodlettings that have been sweeping the publishing business for the last six months or so. I guess there’s still some value in having a geek-in-residence…” That’s his day job. By night he, mostly with writing partner Adam Freeman, is a comic book writer who’s already squeezed some very nice books into the marketplace: The Highwaymen (Wildstorm), Monster Attack Network (AiT/Planet Lar) and Push (Wildstorm, and on sale now). Their upcoming series, Genius, was one of two winners in 2008’s Pilot Season contest from Top Cow.

TOM: First off, congrats on winning Top Cow’s 2008 Pilot Season. How long is the upcoming series going to be and when can we anxious voters expect to see the first issue?

 

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