Last weekend at Comic-Con, I had a chance to interview Man of Action's Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau, along with artist Jason Adam Katzenstein. Not only did we discuss their SDCC-exclusive comic book, THE BUS: A Camp Midnight Mini, but and I was able to learn about their involvement in Disney and Marvel's Big Hero 6.
Daily Dead readers will really enjoy what you guys put together for The Bus: A Camp Midnight Mini comic book. How did this project come together?
Steven T. Seagle: I met Jason through a mutual friend, Daryl Sabara. With Comic-Con being so much about movies and TV shows, I thought it would be fun to have a comic at Comic-Con.
Can you tell our readers a little bit about this new story you've created?
Steven T. Seagle: It's about a girl named Sky, who is being shoved on a bus to summer camp when she doesn't want to go. There are hints at some strains in the relationship with her stepmother and some separation issues with her dad, but the fun of it is that she gets on this bus that is just full of creepy monster kids, so she's kind of looking for a safe port in the storm.
How has the reception to "Camp Midnight" been at Comic-Con?
Jason Adam Katzenstein: People have actually come to the booth because they've heard about the book, which is really exciting. This is my first time as a professional behind the booth at the con, so for me its really an honor. Doing little doodles in the books, people seem excited about it, which is really nice. Seeing someone excited about a comic is like seeing someone excited about an MTV Music Video right now. It's a little heart pang in the best way.
Steven T. Seagle: I worked with Becky Cloonan and her printers to get that high quality look and feel we have. I worked with her on a series called American Virgin. So I just got a hold of her, because, besides looking great, her books just feel so good to have in your hands. I worked with her and her printers to get that high quality for our book. Silk screen cover on a really heavy stock, offset print on on really nice paper. So we owe that all to Beck and people are really surprised that is a really high-quality mini.
Jason Adam Katzenstein: Something nice about it is that its not on your iPad yet either. It's really a tactile thing that you engage with and that does feel like thing people are appreciating, especially the cover.
Steven T. Seagle: Jason did such a great job. Its funny, because the way he works is nutty to me. I've worked with guys who always draw on paper and take their time. Jason is so fast and he works on a tablet. So we met up in New York City, sat in a hotel lobby and, over the course of about two hours, we went from draft after draft, layout after layout, idea after idea, to the finished art. It is amazing that someone could work at that kind of speed and deliver something that looks this good.
You've mentioned wanting to explore more in the world. Do you have specific plans for what's next?
Steven T. Seagle: We have plans to do two bigger projects together. One of them will probably sit in this world and another is just a concept right now that we have been talking about. I like to find new ways to make comics. People always ask, "do you work Marvel style or DC style?" and I'm bored with that. I've been doing a lot of books with Teddy Kristiansen that are very experimental. With Jason's particular skill-set, I had an idea to do something thats really driven by chance operation. We're too early in the process to talk about it, but we know exactly what it is and how it works, and you'll hear a little about that later in the year or early next year, but it's going to be wild. Nobody has ever done a comic like this.
With excitement ramping up for Disney and Marvel's Big Hero 6, are you excited to see your creation on the big screen? What has been your involvement on the project?
Steven T. Seagle: The film was a surprise to us as first. Disney came to Marvel and said we want our first movie that uses Marvel characters. Someone put together a bunch of Marvel properties together for Disney and they chose Big Hero 6, which was no surprise to us, because we make up fun franchise stuff all the time. The surprise being that such an obscure Marvel team would be noticed and submitted.
Duncan Rouleau: The fascinating thing about it was showing Don Hall (director of Big Hero 6) all the original sketches and a lot of other material. The way the characters came out at Marvel was very convoluted. We had created them, but the Sunfire / Big Hero 6 story had come before they made their appearance in Alpha Flight, which was our reason for the generation of them. We wanted to create a group that was like Alpha Flight and that would show up in Alpha Flight because Sunfire was being kept at Department H. We wanted to get readers to be interested or taken aback by this new group of heroes showing up.
The other thing being that there are two amazingly great cultures of comics, American and Japanese, and it just didn't seem like the American comics were including that in the debate, in their vernacular. The idea of taking iconic superheroes from Japanese models and putting them in a Marvel book was our impetus.
When talking with Don Hall, these were the things they picked up on for starting the project. This was the core and a lot of the relationships for the characters, we had written up in backstory. Either they had read that stuff and liked it or they came to a lot of it with the breadcrumbs that were in the books. We're really happy with where it is because it wasn't ever fully realized with the books. To see it in this new form is equally as exciting for us.
Have you had a chance to see any of the finished film?
Steven T. Seagle: We haven't seen the full movie yet, but they brought us in and showed us where they were recently. We can't discuss anything we saw, but we are allowed to give our opinion that it was awesome. Its been fun to watch people at the con reacting to it, because they've really embraced it. Its something nobody has seen and people are just crazy mad for it already, which is awesome.
Duncan Rouleau: At the very core, Disney is doing what they always do best. They take some kind of strong visual or fantastical world and make it human, with characters that you really care about. That is exactly what they've done here. They've concentrated on Baymax as this kind of soft squishy hero, but there is even a deeper story in there that I think people are really going to respond to. What we like to say for our part is Hans Christian Anderson, Mother Goose, Brother's Grimm, and Steve Seagle & Duncan Rouleau. A lot of modesty.
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Steven T. Seagle will be signing "THE BUS: A Camp Midnight Mini" at the Long Beach Comic Con on September 28-29. We have more details on the mini below, including preview pages (with one page as an exclusive just for Daily Dead readers):
"Man of Action's Steven T. Seagle (it's a bird ..., Genius, Imperial) and Jason Adam Katzenstein (MAD Magazine, College Humor) present The Bus: A Camp Midnight Mini.
"THE BUS: A Camp Midnight Mini is a low print-run, mini-comic featuring a short story about a young girl unwillingly being whisked away to a creepy little summer camp," says Seagle. "In the midst of all the high profile, big studio brouhaha, Jason and I thought it would be fun to put out a cool little comic book exclusive at the biggest con in the country."
"I couldn't imagine something that belongs less in Hall H, and I couldn't be more excited about this little book." confirms Katzenstein.
THE BUS: A Camp Midnight Mini is the first-ever small press publication of Man of Action Entertainment, creators of BEN 10. The book is 28 black and white offset pages with a two-color silkscreen cover on heavy orange stock. The edition is limited to 1000 copies and will only be available at the MAN OF ACTION BOOTH. Written by Steven T. Seagle and drawn by new talent Jason Adam Katzenstein, Seagle will be on hand to sign each copy purchased.
In comics, Seagle is best known for his semi-autobiographical graphic novel it's a bird... and House of Secrets, both from DC Comics/Vertigo, Genius from 1:2 -- which USA Today named one of the best graphic novels of 2013, and The Red Diary/The RE[a]D Diary flip book, the Eisner-nominated noir thriller KAFKA (now in development for television), and the kid-friendly books Batula and Frankie Stein, all from the Man of Action imprint at Image Comics. Seagle's new comic book series, Imperial, debuts August 6th from the Man of Action imprint/Image Comics.
About Man of Action Entertainment
Man of Action Entertainment, the creative studio and writers collective started in 2000, created the megahit Ben 10, a three billion dollar boys' action empire that has been called the most successful superhero launch of the past decade. Man of Action Entertainment is comprised of creators and acclaimed comic book writers Joe Casey, Joe Kelly, Duncan Rouleau and Steven T. Seagle, having collectively worked on the largest franchise characters in comics from Superman to X-Men before refocusing on creating worlds and characters for their own original work published through their Man of Action imprint at Image Comics. They also created cult favorite series Generator Rex for Cartoon Network, and are co-executive producers and writers for Marvel's Avengers Assemble and executive produced/wrote Ultimate Spider-Man on Disney XD. Beyond the world of animation, Man of Action has created wildly successful video games, toy lines, comic books, stage productions, as well as forthcoming feature films and live action television shows, some of which are based on their own original comic book series and graphic novels. Upcoming films based upon Man of Action creations include New Line's The Great Unknown, Officer Downe and Big Hero 6, announced as Disney's first animated feature based on a Marvel property featuring the team of characters created by Man of Action. Follow them at their not-so-secret headquarters on the Web: http://www.manofaction.tv Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/ManOfActionEnt Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/ManOfActionEnt"
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