With a whole bunch of announcements made at C2E2, Dark Horse Comics proved that they're a force to be reckoned with. From their licensed properties, to their own creations, the company is headed in a bold and brave direction and Entertainment Fuse was there to talk to Scott Allie, a long time member of the Dark Horse community, to talk about what lies ahead for 2013.
Entertainment Fuse: You just announced “Hellboy: The Midnight Circus” at the retailer summit. Can you give us some more details on the graphic novel?
Scott Allie: It's set in the past, where a young Hellboy runs away from the B.P.R.D. and decides to join the circus. It's not what he sets out to do, but ends up joining this supernatural circus, which also includes some major figures from hell, that will take up a major role later on and connect to the current “Hellboy in Hell” series. The story is really great, but the art that Duncan Fegredo is mind blowing and we're constantly amazed when pages come in, because he's doing this ink wash technique, where every page is a fully realized black and white painting. It's in the same format as the “Hellboy: House of the Living Dead”, the Richard Corben hardcover.
Q: The fact that you have one of these already out and another one coming, is it a goal to keep doing “Hellboy” stories like this with other artists like Kevin Nowlan or Scott Hampton or any other artist that has contributed to the “Hellboy” universe?
That's a great idea! We really want to keep Hellboy focused in “Hellboy in Hell” and Mike is really busy trying to cut down his own workload. If he want's to work with an artist to tell a story in this format, then we'll do it, but for now it's just this. If someone like Corben want's to do a book like this, Mike will probably whip something up for him, but for now Mike is trying to stay focused on “Hellboy in Hell”.
Q: Speaking of Corben, the Edgar Alan Poe work he's been doing with you guys is amazing, is there any more of that stuff coming out?
Yeah, we're just gonna keep on going with that stuff. He's completed his two issues of “The Fall of the House of Usher”, which is a really neat take on that story. He's done that story before, but he wanted to find a new way to tackle that story and make it fresh again. He's done Poe adaptations before, where he's thrown sci-fi stuff in there and made it feel really different from Poe, but still inspired. With these current run of Poe stories, he want's to stay very faithful to Poe's gothic vision, that Corben is so good at and he's already done a bunch of work on the next one.
Q: You guys at Dark Horse have been doing more superhero comics in the past year. I know you guys aren't directly trying to take down Marvel and DC, but what are your plans for that?
We're totally gonna take them down with the “The Black Beetle” and “The Victories”.
Nice!
(Laughs) It was coming from a couple of different directions. We wanted to bring back older characters like “Ghost” and “X” and modernize them a bit, as opposed to what they were in the 90's. While we were prepping that, we were getting guys like Francesco Francavilla, Mike Norton and Mike Oeming, who were pitching us these superhero comics, that we really wanted to do. We're generally not known for superhero books, even though we've done plenty, like “The Umbrella Academy”, which was really a dark, superhero book. What we want to do now, is have a few books, that are very traditional, like “X” and “Captain Midnight” but then also do some superhero books that have a much more original visions, to show off that we can publish things like that as well.
Q: You guys already have a relationship with Gerard Way, with having published “The Umbrella Academy”. Can you talk a bit about “The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys”?
“Killjoys” was an idea that Gerard and Shaun Simon, that they came up with a long time ago. We had announced it way back, around the same time that My Chemical Romance started recording their fourth and final album. “Killjoys” was just occupying his mind so much, that he turned that record, which turned out to be their last record, into a “Killjoys” record. That record is the “Killjoys” story, which is what he was originally going to do, but now the comic is now the aftermath of the story that's on the record. Its about the world that has been changed, by these dynamic, super heroic characters and more about characters that were affected by the Killjoys, rather then being about them.
Q: I just have to ask, where did you guys find James Harren, because his work on “B.P.R.D.” and “Conan” are absolutely incredible?
It was either John Arcudi or Mike Mignola found him on Facebook. They saw his stuff there and then started corresponding with him. We started lining up little projects with him, to test him out and he just got better and better as time went on. So now, James prefers to do longer stories, so he's currently working on a five part story for the “B.P.R.D.” that's extremely significant and is going to really matter in the overall history of the series.
Q: Speaking of the “B.P.R.D.”, you recently did “The Pickens County Horror”, which brought back the vampire element into the universe. Was that always a goal for you to bring them back in a big way, seeing how the last major vampire in the series was Count Giurescu?
Mike's had along running plan and while there are vampires in “Hellboy”, it was supposed to be conspicuous that there were no vampires around. The reason why they're missing, isn't because Mike doesn't like them, Mike love vampires. “Pickens County” became the first place to plant the seeds to the reveal that there was something there. We've also got the “B.P.R.D. Vampire” series that Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon are doing, that will also reveal other parts of it. Mike and I recently mapped out a significant vampire story, that will blow the lid off the secret, but its still a couple years away.
The work and the creativity that the whole team has been putting together has been really phenomenal.
The team of artist that we have on the books are truly amazing. The teamwork, between me, John and Mike is, in my experience, somewhat unique. I'm really lucky to be working with the two of them and between the three of us, there's a great sense of teamwork, collaboration and a lack of ego, that would never have been possible for us to be doing what we're doing, without a level of friendship, that reinforces it all. The same goes for the “Buffy” books as well. The level of work between me, Joss Whedon, Jane Espenson, Andrew Chambliss, Chris Gage and a few other people, with just everyone sitting there, getting the stories out, without anyone wanting to take credit or so that their idea is better than everyone else's. The best situation to have, is when the best idea in the room wins and that's how it feels on the Mignola books and the Whedon books. It makes the work so much more fun.
EF: Thank you so much for your time.
Thanks.