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Though it’s called Invisible Republic, the Image series from Gabriel Hardman and Corinna Bechko has quickly made its presence felt. In five issues the husband and wife duo (along colorist Jordan Boyd and designer Dylan Todd) have managed to introduce a rich futuristic setting and a compelling set of characters. To celebrate the release of the first volume […]

By Nick Eskey

On July 9^th at San Diego Comic-Con, the creators of comics “Eat of West” (Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta) and “Invisible Republic” (Gabriel Hardman and Corrina Bechko) gathered on behalf of Image Comics. These comic writers and artists were present to discuss the processes that they use to create their perspective works.

First the prompter asked the panel to talk about the comics themselves. “Eat of West is a Sci-fi Western,” said Jonathan Hickman. “The four horsemen come to bring about the apocalypse. But one of them falls in love; death of course. And he doesn’t feel like fulfilling his duty.” Gabriel Hardman said that “Invisible Republic is about a disgraced reporter that finds a hidden history of a foreign planet.”

Writer Jonathan Hickman and Artist Nick Dragotta (“East of West”)

For any story, the first thing that has to get cleared is its development. “We had an idea for a world going through a rebellion,” said Gabriel. “We were thinking of this song from the 70’s that talked about rebellion in the future.” For East of West, Nick and Jonathan talk about how they went to lunch together. “Nick wanted a Western, and I wanted a Sci-fi,” said Jonathan Hickman. “When we couldn’t argue over which one, we just decided to do both.”

With the idea of the story decided, the teams would need to be able to work well together. With any collaboration between artist and writer, they would each need to learn the other’s habits. “Well, we’re married,” said Gabriel. “We live in the same house. Our working habits have a sort of ‘Jazz’ interplay. If something doesn’t work, we talk to each other and change it… It’s very organic. And if we want to change something, it’s not like we have to go to anyone and get the changed approved.” For East of West, artist Nick said “I just wanted to make the work easy between us.” Gabriel from Invisible Republic laughed as this, then adding “It’s never easy for us.”

Writer Gabriel Hardman and Artist Corinna Bechko (“Invisible Republic”)

What sets apart a graphic novel and a comic from a book is the artwork; it tells the story just as much as the dialogue. Nick Dragotta spoke about his own drawing style. “I like to use thumbnails as panels… to let them lead the reader’s eye. This is easier for me because I work in digital, and use layers.” Writer Jonathan Hickman added that because his time is limited, he has to look at his work as a whole. “I’ll give Nick what idea I have for dialogue, sometimes even the whole thing, knowing there’s a chance I’ll have to rewrite it all… I just try to get the hell out of the way, and let the artist have his way.”

After showing the completed art, Nick said that sometimes Jonathan will say a section “would do better with this addition of dialogue.” This would make Nick either add a page or two, or even go back and redo some of them. “An angle change might have happened,” he further adds.

Gabriel Harman says that he’s in large a story board artist, working on some movies just as “Tropic Thunder” and “Inception.” He prefers to use more traditional means, using paper and pencils to draw out the scenes, defining parts here and there but not fully. “And I’ll ink it as I go,” he said.  “I don’t do full penciling first, or I’ll find that I have this dead thing.”

Soon the topic of rules came up: whether there are rules for their work. “One thing I believe in is arbitrary rules,” said Gabriel. “Things go left and right, and important things to the front. [Also] never use caption to tell where the story is going… For us it’s about drama than literature. These things are how you tell the story.”

This led to a discussion of how the teams decide to convey their story. Some comic writers and artists use captions to partially tell it, and some use over dramatic scenes. “We try to tell emotion with less,” said Gabriel. “Struggle and intensity with how the characters hold themselves. I want them to be like pixies; I want them to be quiet, and I want them to be loud when loud… I don’t want it like ‘Jack Kirby,’ where everything is flying out at you.”

“If you’re a writer, it’s like a huge cheat to just tell someone what’s going on,” said Jonathan of East of West. “It’s like if they said ‘I ran as fast as I could,’ and then they run. There’s nothing worse than telling something twice.” Nick added that, “I first drive for clarity; simplify. And then I draw the heck out of it.”

After the art is pretty much done, coloring comes in. Color palettes can be very important as well when it comes to making the comic tie together well. Gabriel of Invisible Republic mentioned that since their comic has two time streams, they use two different palettes. “The present is a desaturated  film look, when film use to be used for movies.” Nick took it further by talking about the role of colorists. “[They are] like the new finishers… we give the colorist enough space to play and have it. Color sells books, really. If you are in perfect harmony with your colorist, you have it made.”

As a last discussion, the teams discussed their influences; where their ideas come from. “Manga, because they show, not tell,” said Nick Dragotta. Jonathan Hickman had a lot more to say on the subject. “I consumed as much as I could when I was beginning, and my first five projects could be seen as ‘this is like that, but meets this.’ I don’t read as much anymore  though… when I work it could spark an idea that I’ll want to include, or spark another idea that I don’t’ have time for… Nowadays I watch a lot of film.”

Gabriel Hardman said that “I take influences from other outside sources. Pull from everything, not just comics.” This is where Jonathan broke back in, and went on a rampage about comic ideas. “I also work for marvel as a writer, and they write comics for comics. They don’t take any original ideas, just basically mine their previous franchises. It’s incestuous. No, they’ve [expletive] themselves beyond incestuous.” He then discussed how “cool” it is when people are willing to try new original things. “It’s really cool.”

It’s great to see the process from where the story and art of our comics come to life. Because after all, that’s what makes comics, well, comics. And it’s great to have a company like Image that gives their writers and artists the space to let such creativity flow. Keep an eye out for “East of West” and “Invisible Republic.”

We’ve fallen a little behind on our Dynamite news so here’s a big catch-up post with all the news — and rest assured more is to come.

• Corrina Bechko (the excellent Invisible Republic from Image and Star Wars: Legacy) will write the Aliens / Vampirella horror crossover. Javier García-Miranda does interiors while Gabriel Hardman, another Beat favorite, provides the covers. A Vampirella/Aleisn team-up sounds a bit odd, but ampi can corssover with anyone, and here she investigates a bloddy mystery on Mars. OK THEN! The book comes out in September.

§ More Swords of Sorrow! A Swords of Sorrow: Miss Fury / Lady Rawhide one shot and a Cosplay Edition of Swords of Sorrow #3, inspired by cosplayer Tabitha Lyons. The scene reënects J. Scott Campbell’s cover to SoS #1 withTabitha Lyons as Red Sonja, Tasha Mackenzie as Dejah Thoris, Chiquitita Cosplay as Jungle Girl, and Mojo Jones as Vampirella.

Slated for release in September, the Swords of Sorrow: Miss Fury / Lady Rawhide special unites the rebellious Western heroine of yesteryear with the unpredictable — perhaps dangerously so — costumed crime-fighter, whether they like it or not. Written by Mikki Kendall and illustrated by Ronilson Freire, the one-shot comes with a cover by artist Mirka Andolfo.

• A 250-page artbook devoted to Jose “Pepe” Gonzalez, with an intro by Joe Jusko and hundred of images from the Vampirella artists career. Check out the gallery below, this stuff is nice.

Renowned for bringing to life the most beautiful women the art world has ever seen, Gonzalez’s career spans from drawing British romance comics to movie stars, book covers to commercial advertising. For the first time ever, author David Roach covers Gonzalez’s entire career, transcending his vast body of Vampirella work to explore the full breadth of the master’s creations.

• Alice Cooper vs. Chaos!, a five-issue miniseries pitting the world-renowned rock ‘n’ roll icon against Evil Ernie, Chastity, and Purgatori. Tim Seeley (Hack/Slash, Batman: Eternal) and Jim Terry (The Crow: Skinning the Wolves) share writing duties for the event series, with Terry performing double-duty as the series artist. Joyce Chin (Swords of Sorrow) will provide covers. This sounds weird but I guess you had to be there!

“Diving headfirst into the Chaos! universe has been incredible, like being pushed out of a plane into a combat zone filled with gods, nut jobs, and the most gorgeous women you could fathom,” says co-writer and artist Jim Terry. “I’m doing my best to keep up with it and hopefully kick in a little dramatic flair, as well as my own (and Tim’s) particular brand of madness. Add Alice Cooper to the mix and we’re hoping to leave fans breathless from action, horror, and mind-bending rock ‘n’ roll surrealism.”

• Finally, a new six issues miniseries called Voltron: From the Ashes, written by Cullen Bunn (Deadpool, Captain America) and illustrated by Blacky Shepherd (3 Days in Darkness). Set two hundred years after the events of Dynamite’s previous Voltron series, the miniseries will introduce a new team to pilot the five lions that form the Defender of the Universe. The debut issue will launch in September 2015 and feature cover artwork from acclaimed Transformers artist Alex Milne. Mecha stuff if you like that kind of thing.

§ A new Abhay Khosla review, this time of The Names by Peter Milligan and Leandro Fernandez is always a Cadbury Milk Tray of unexpected flavors, and this one includes a brief but smooth swipe at The Vertigo Brown:

A quick note to Vertigo colorists: If you are working for Vertigo, there is a belief that both Vertigo and you get a gross, throbbing weiner-boner everytime you get to make a page all brown. People believe that because it’s 100% true, and the only possible explanation for why all Vertigo comics ever published have been so drenched in the color brown. Nothing else makes sense; no other solution to that equation. Please consider defying your brown-obsessed masters. Look into your hearts. You know what you see? If you see the color brown, something has gone horribly wrong. I’m not a doctor, but that probably means someone has shit into your heart and you have feces pumping through your arteries. At the very least, it just sounds unhealthy from a cardiac-perspective.

Why are Vertigo comics so brown? I’ve never been able to answer that question and I worked there, and all my books were brown, too.

§ Several attractive covers were floating around on my social media yesterday:

Bill Sienkiewicz for Jupiter’s Circle, the sequel to Jupiter’s Children by Mark Millar and Wilfredo Torres.

Goran Parlov also for Jupiter’s Circle.

And a teaser image and cover for Invisible Republic #1 by Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman with colors by Jordan Boyd.  It hits March 18. Lookin; good.

§ Jennifer Sorenson contributes a comic about Charlie Hebdo and all the rest. If you haven’t been following the comics section at Fusion.net you need to.

§ Robert Kirby has the lowdown on New Minis from Kus!

Kuš! (pronounced “koosh”), the Latvian comics collective launched in 2007, released this new quartet of minicomics late 2014. Each Kuš! mini is a 24-page stand-alone story culled from their growing roster of international artists. Many stories feature elements of fantasy, science fiction, or magical realism, but even the ones that don’t exhibit fanciful or otherworldly qualites. The artists featured by Kuš! tend to dwell in the conceptual rather than the actual, using the art of cartooning in unique and sometimes challenging ways.

These books are so awesome. I’m not really into mail order but the Kus gang doesn’t often some to my hemisphere so…

§ A British politician totally ripped off the ‘V for Vendetta’ logo for a new nationalist party he’s trying to get off the ground. If you’re going to rip off some one rip off the best, but come on.

§ Matthew Meylikhov has announced he’s stepping down as EIC of Multiversity Comics. I always enjoyed my interactions with Matt so I’m going to miss him but send my best regards.

To some this may seem a bit of a shock. I told a few people about this before our public announcement, that I had made the decision to move on, and the most consistent response I got was, “How are you feeling?” I think people expect me to say that I am sad, which is perhaps inevitable; how could anyone not be in this situation? After all, when you spend over five years of your life working and developing something like this, it’s not exactly easy to just pack your bags and go. But I’m not sad, nor do I think should anyone else be. If I could, I’d make a video montage of all the fun memories and things I’ve gotten to do because of this site overlayed with “Eternal Flame” by the Bangles, because I have nothing but warm thoughts and fuzzy feelings for the site, its past with me and its future without me. I couldn’t be more proud of the site and everyone here, all the accomplishments and the adventures we’ve shared; from our various annual charity events at conventions, to late nights out until 3:00 AM or that time I got food poisoning at a White Castle while rooming with 5 other staffers during a con. This site and its staff encapsulate some of my favorite people and fondest adult memories.

§ Fashion retailer Poprageous is offering an outfit made from Benedict Cumberbatch images. The complete outfit sells for $125 but just the leggings—which are the essential fashion item of this time and place in the universal meta stream—are only $80. completely your red carpet look NOW. Bam! Benedict Cumberbatch leggings. BAM!