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Comic Books Go To The Movies

This month, PREVIEWSworld presents Movie Month, our annual celebration of the best Genre offerings of Sci-Fi, Horror, Fantasy, Action and Comic Book-themed movies, and the comics, graphic novels and merchandise that inspired or were spawned by them. With more and more comic books being optioned for big screen and TV adaptations, our Movie Month celebration is the best reason for us to reach out to some of today’s creators who are bringing the movies to comics or vice versa!

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Article ImageBEAU SMITH—WYNONNA EARP

PREVIEWSworldPlease tell us a bit about yourself!

Beau Smith: Well, I’ve outrun the laws of getting tossed out of the comic book business for close to 30 years. I’m really proud of the fact that within that time I’ve been the VP of Marketing for Eclipse Comics, Image Comics, McFarlane Toys, IDW Publishing, Jun Planning and currently The Library of American Comics. That’s just the day job. As a writer I’ve written for every major publisher in comics except Marvel Comics. (I did write Wolverine vs. Shi, but that was a crossover!) I’ve written Batman, Star Wars, Guy Gardner, The Legion of Super-Heroes, B’Wana Beast, Aliens, and tons of other established characters. I am the creator/owner of Wynonna Earp, Cobb, Parts Unknown, Primate, 200 People to Kill, The Black Terror, The BadLander, Maximum Jack and many others. Oh, I’m also a peach of a guy to hang out with.

PREVIEWSworld: How did you take Wynonna Earp from the Comic Book to the SyFy TV series?

Beau Smith: That would be Wynonna Earp, an ongoing series being published at IDW Publishing — and a brand new TV series for the SyFy Network!

Article ImagePREVIEWSworld: What aspect of this franchise do you believe translates best to a sequential art?

Beau Smith: Wynonna Earp best represents that we all need and want to relate to heroes that we find a little of ourselves in. In Wynonna’s case, she is a bit flawed, messed up, and doesn’t make the best choices at times.

The TV series and the comic book, both show Wynonna at the start of her U.S. Marshal Black Badge career, when she is learning all about her potential and how to start making better choices. It’s not an easy path, but she learns to carve it out pretty good with the help of family and some very unique friends. We all need heroes to aspire to be as well as to be motivated by, and Wynonna Earp is a very good example of that.

The best part, I believe, with Wynonna Earp, is that as a character, she translates to the screen as well as she does to the printed page.  TV Series showrunner and head writer, Emily Andras and I feel that we have the opportunity to present that to readers and viewers with both the TV series and the comic book.  No reader or viewer will be left behind.

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PREVIEWSworld: What are your favorite movie-themed projects you’ve read to over the past decade?

Beau Smith: For consistency, I’d say G.I. Joe, the comic book series runs with the same feel that the films did. The Walking Dead on TV has given non-traditional and non-comic book readers a glance into the craft of how comic books are written and the depth they can display. Marvel Comics has been great with not only capturing new readers, but also showing the comic book business how they can better represent their own characters. It’s a very good time for comic book-themed films and TV. I think this is just the start of how we are going to see graphic novel and comic book writing change the way film and TV characters are written in this theme. Of course, Wynnona Earp is the best so far — defy me on that opinion and I’ll make Negan of The Walking Dead look like a Sunday School teacher!

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Article ImageJASON CRAIG—EQUILIBRIUM

PREVIEWSworld Please tell us a bit about yourself!

Jason Craig: I’ve been drawing since I could hold a pencil, and I self-published my first comic, EVIL Waise, in my early 20s with my friends Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead), Jonboy Meyers (Spawn), and Marvel colorist Val Staples, all contributing their own personal works as well!

From there I stayed busy with Grimm Fairy Tales which led to a film adapting career on projects like Se7en and ReAnimator. This all culminated on a dream project, which was bringing to life a screenplay that was to become a movie, the award-winning Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash, the sequel to the Freddy vs. Jason film. Since then, I’ve worked on other titles ranging from Evil Ernie at Dynamite to Wolverine at Marvel. I’m currently rebooting EVIL Waise and Equilibrium at American Mythology.

Article ImagePREVIEWSworld: What movie-themed title are you currently working on?

Jason Craig: Equilibrium. It’s such a great cult film and having the chance to develop the sequel we never saw in theaters is fantastic!

PREVIEWSworld: What aspect of this movie franchise do you believe translates best to a sequential art?

Jason Craig: It’s easy to say “action sells” and to draw action scenes that look cool, but that to me is a cheap almost cheesecake way out, to coin an industry term. I see this as a very story-driven piece. Although we think of it as an action film and now book, I personally see it as a political stance on creativity told through a creative medium, comic books. In the movie anything that evokes an emotion was illegal; music, art, movies, etc. So we can really see this book as an uprising of new creative people wanting to take their freedom and world back, and now the artists and the creative people are fighting back… at least that’s my personal stance I take when putting myself in the characters’ shoes while drawing and creating this world.

Article ImageYou will see little hidden gems in the art tipping my hat to that notion of artists wanting to be heard that live in this world our characters inhabit.

PREVIEWSworld: What are your favorite movie themed projects you’ve read to over the past decade?

Jason Craig: It’s really hard to not mention my calling card, and that was working with Jeff Katz, James Kuhoric, and Thomas Mason on Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash, it was almost historic. We took a book that no one noticed and took it to the top. You would think a recognized property like Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, or Evil Dead would be natural best-sellers but they weren’t at the time, and from our team’s contributions it is still listed as one of the Top Horror comics of the last 10 years, and I am very proud of that! I’d really love to see this project have a similar fate.

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Article ImageSHAWN GABBORIN—PUPPET MASTER

PREVIEWSworld: Please tell us a bit about yourself!

Shawn Gabborin: I am a co-founder of Action Lab Entertainment and serve as Editor-In-Chief of the company. I also head up our “Full Moon Presents” line of comics, through which we are bringing a number of cult-favorite Full Moon films to the comic page!

PREVIEWSworld: What movie themed title are you currently working on?

Shawn Gabborin: I write Puppet Master for Action Lab: Danger Zone, and I am having a blast bringing these classic horror characters to life once again!

PREVIEWSworld: What aspect of this movie franchise do you believe translates best to a sequential art?

Shawn Gabborin: Puppet Master is, in the most basic description, a story about killer puppets. Bringing it to comics, I can pull off many different action sequences and kills that the films just couldn’t accomplish with stop-motion animation or rod-and-string manipulation. Unlike films, our only “budget” we need concern ourselves with is our imagination and the artist’s pen… so we’re free to get pretty crazy!

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PREVIEWSworld: What are your favorite movie themed projects you’ve read to over the past decade?

Shawn Gabborin: I loved the recent Clive Barker’s Nightbreed comic! The Wildstorm Texas Chainsaw Massacre run had some great stories, and the current Darth Vader comic is great. I’m a big A Nightmare on Elm Street fan, so anytime there’s a Freddy adaptation, I’ll buy it!

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