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RVA Comics X-Change: Issue 35

Ash Griffith | January 14, 2020

Topics: 8-Bit Theater, Atomic Robo, Brian Clevinger, CGI, comics, Comics X-Change, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Iron Man, James Dean, Kamen Rider, Marvel Cinematic Universe, RVA comics, RVA Comics X-Change, Scott Derickson, Scott Wegener, Taco Bell

Happy new year, comic fans! Welcome to a new year of new goals, new opportunities, and — most importantly — new comics.

This year we are bringing you more of the best in comic news, upcoming comics, and events. We will be covering GalaxyCon once again this year, where we will talk to upcoming illustrators and creators, and of course all of your celeb favorites. But before we get there, we are also going to be talking to voices in the scene we haven’t met before.

The first of those new voices to the column is co-creator of Atomic Robo and author of 8-Bit Theater Brian Clevinger. He has lived in Richmond for the last ten years along with Atomic Robo co-creator Scott Wegener, where they are about to embark on volume fourteen. If you couldn’t tell, he’s a big fan of robots (and history and British detective shows. So all of the good things, really).

Clevinger originally got his start back in 2001, while in college. He began 8-Bit Theater as a webcomic during a time when all you had to do to succeed at webcomics was just exist. Aside from that and Atomic Robo, he is known for freelance work he has done for Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, amongst others.

While Atomic Robo is naturally one of his favorites, mostly due to the structural nature of the series, a small project for Marvel comes to mind as something he has particularly enjoyed so far in his career. 

“One of my Marvel gigs was with Scott comes to mind,” said Clevinger. “It was a silly little tie-in comic for Taco Bell. I think around the time of the second Iron Man movie. No one really cared about it, so we got to tell a goofy story about MODOK attacking Tony Stark with lawyer assassins.”

The biggest thing that he wishes people understood about the Richmond comics scene is simply enough that it is far larger than it gets credit for. It is a very indie scene, but large and proud.

“New York has a lot of momentum as a comics town because all the publishers were there when things got started up in the 20th century,” said Clevinger. “Portland is the other big comics town, thanks to publishers like Dark Horse and Oni setting up shop there. I think Richmond is easily positioned to be the next big comics town. The South needs one, dammit.”

Clevinger brings us a good teaser recommendation to bring us into the new year, and he makes it count. Manga classic Kamen Rider by Shotaro Ishinomori helps lead your comic recommendations into 2020.

Kamen Rider is a long-running manga franchise that crosses not only manga but television and films, with various iterations that have spanned decades, such as Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider Amazon, and Kamen Rider X, among an endless list of others. Originating in 1971, the series follows the story of a man who becomes a masked motorcycle riding superhero fighting monsters and evil organizations. The protagonist himself differentiates depending on the installment at hand.

News this week is a little light, but sees among other things the departure of Doctor Strange’s director and Marvel Studios wanting you to know they will not resurrect the dead.

Doctor Strange: In the Multiverse of Madness Director Scott Derickson has left his role as director, and claims the departure is amicable. He tweeted his announcement this week and claimed as well that he will remain in his other role as producer.

“Marvel and I have mutually agreed to part ways on Doctor Strange: In the Multiverse of Madness due to creative differences,” Derrickson said on his Twitter. “I am thankful for our collaboration and will remain on as [Executive Producer].”

Marvel also claims that it is amicable, and that this will not affect the predicted release date of May 2021, even though a replacement has not been found. 

When Star Wars icon Carrie Fisher died in 2016, one of the first questions asked was what would happen to General Leia Organa now that her actress was no longer with us. Lucasfilms was quick to respond with “CGI, obviously.” Marvel, however, will apparently not be taking that route in the future.

“We haven’t considered that,” said Marvel Studios Vice President and Avengers: Endgame Executive Producer Victoria Alonso to Yahoo! Movies.

James Dean, Warner Bros. publicity still for for the film Rebel Without a Cause, via Wikimedia

The question originally sprung up because of controversy surrounding the announcement that Finding Evan will be digitally CGIing iconic actor James Dean into the film posthumously. The idea even roused up Captain America himself, Chris Evans, who tweeted his thoughts.

“This is awful. Maybe we can get a computer to paint us a new Picasso,” Evans tweeted. “Or write a couple new John Lennon tunes. The complete lack of understanding here is shameful.”

That wraps it up for us this week, comic fans! What are you looking forward to in 2020?

Until next time.

RVA #28: Comic books and creators come to Richmond, unite in local online community

RVA Staff | May 15, 2017

Topics: RVA 28, RVA ARt, RVA comics

Before they were made into blockbuster movies and showed up weekly on television, comic books were once publications advertised as “All in Color for a Dime” and almost exclusively produced in New York. Over the years, not only has the price per-issue increased exponentially, but the production of the books has become radically decentralized. Industry titan Marvel still resides in New York, while their closest competitor DC has moved its operations to the West Coast and hundreds of indie publishers have taken to the space between. The internet itself has helped decentralize too, offering creators chances to work outside of a publisher’s base, settling instead in areas where they find inspiration.

Welcome to Richmond.

This article was featured in RVAMag #28: Spring 2017. You can read all of issue #28 here or pick it up at local shops around RVA right now.

Long-time Richmond resident Chris Pitzer is one of these creators enjoying the freedom offered by comic books today. Inspired by the four-color heroes he discovered in elementary school, he eventually joined the ranks of Eclipse Comics out in California, while also offering freelance work as a designer and colorist. Upon returning to the East Coast, he founded AdHouse Books back in 2002 and these days, he hosts a local comic creators group called RVA Comic Creator-ish.

The group sports a Facebook page and also, according to Pitzer, meets four to five times a year because “It’s always good to meet people face to face,” a notion he describes as an excellent way “…to meet new people, exchange information and experiences, talk comics, TV, movies.” At one such meeting just prior to Christmas, he brought some boxes of AdHouse inventory and gave copies to everyone there. “I think that was a pre-Christmas get together, which feels appropriate,” he smiles.


Image from Comic Creator-ish member J. Robert Deans‎

Online, the group’s growing presence includes comic book aficionados with several credits to their name such as Ken Marcus (Super Human Resources), Tim Shinn (If Anthology, Green Arrow), Kelly Alder (Project: Romantic), and even Patrick Godfrey, owner of local store Velocity Comics.

“It’s like a wave in the ocean,” Pitzer says. “The amount of comic creators in Richmond comes and goes. Obviously, the magnet is VCU, but then it depends on whether each creator is finding what they need in our city.”

Someone finding what they need is Gary Cohn who helped create the characters Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, and Blue Devil for DC Comics in the ‘80s. Two years ago, Cohn retired from his job as a teacher in New York City and relocated to Richmond.

“When I decided to leave New York City, I wanted to find a new home where I could find a creative community to help me re-energize and reawaken as a comics creator,” Cohn explains. “My two years in Richmond have taken me a long way towards doing that.”

Many like Cohn are finding new inspiration from Comic Creator-ish, a group that’s becoming more like a true community with members offering to give advice or even help someone move to a new apartment. Pitzer states that it isn’t necessary to be a working professional to “become” a member. To the group, all that’s required is an interest in comicbooks. If you have it and live in the area, then by all means — visit their page, attend a gathering, and join the community.

On Facebook at “RVA Comics Creator-ish”

Words by Robert J. Sodaro, top image via Adhouse Books

RVA Mag #28: Comic books and creators come to Richmond, unite in local online community

Robert Sodaro | May 15, 2017

Topics: comic books, community, RVA comics

Before they were made into blockbuster movies and showed up weekly on television, comic books were once publications advertised as “All in Color for a Dime” and almost exclusively produced in New York. Over the years, not only has the price per-issue increased exponentially, but the production of the books has become radically decentralized. Industry titan Marvel still resides in New York, while their closest competitor DC has moved its operations to the West Coast and hundreds of indie publishers have taken to the space between. The internet itself has helped decentralize too, offering creators chances to work outside of a publisher’s base, settling instead in areas where they find inspiration.

Welcome to Richmond.

This article was featured in RVAMag #28: Spring 2017. You can read all of issue #28 here or pick it up at local shops around RVA right now.

Long-time Richmond resident Chris Pitzer is one of these creators enjoying the freedom offered by comic books today. Inspired by the four-color heroes he discovered in elementary school, he eventually joined the ranks of Eclipse Comics out in California, while also offering freelance work as a designer and colorist. Upon returning to the East Coast, he founded AdHouse Books back in 2002 and these days, he hosts a local comic creators group called RVA Comic Creator-ish.

The group sports a Facebook page and also, according to Pitzer, meets four to five times a year because “It’s always good to meet people face to face,” a notion he describes as an excellent way “…to meet new people, exchange information and experiences, talk comics, TV, movies.” At one such meeting just prior to Christmas, he brought some boxes of AdHouse inventory and gave copies to everyone there. “I think that was a pre-Christmas get together, which feels appropriate,” he smiles.


Image from Comic Creator-ish member J. Robert Deans‎

Online, the group’s growing presence includes comic book aficionados with several credits to their name such as Ken Marcus (Super Human Resources), Tim Shinn (If Anthology, Green Arrow), Kelly Alder (Project: Romantic), and even Patrick Godfrey, owner of local store Velocity Comics.

“It’s like a wave in the ocean,” Pitzer says. “The amount of comic creators in Richmond comes and goes. Obviously, the magnet is VCU, but then it depends on whether each creator is finding what they need in our city.”

Someone finding what they need is Gary Cohn who helped create the characters Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, and Blue Devil for DC Comics in the ‘80s. Two years ago, Cohn retired from his job as a teacher in New York City and relocated to Richmond.

“When I decided to leave New York City, I wanted to find a new home where I could find a creative community to help me re-energize and reawaken as a comics creator,” Cohn explains. “My two years in Richmond have taken me a long way towards doing that.”

Many like Cohn are finding new inspiration from Comic Creator-ish, a group that’s becoming more like a true community with members offering to give advice or even help someone move to a new apartment. Pitzer states that it isn’t necessary to be a working professional to “become” a member. To the group, all that’s required is an interest in comicbooks. If you have it and live in the area, then by all means — visit their page, attend a gathering, and join the community.

On Facebook at “RVA Comics Creator-ish”

Sink/Swim Press to release post-apocalyptic western comic ‘The Savage Lyrics’ next month

Amy David | January 15, 2016

Topics: comic books, post-apocalyptic, RVA comics, sink/swim press, westerns

Local publishing company [Read more…] about Sink/Swim Press to release post-apocalyptic western comic ‘The Savage Lyrics’ next month

Wizard World Comic Con returns to RVA with Henry Winkler, Sean Astin, Billy Dee Williams, Kristin Bauer, Linda Blair, and a so much freaking more

Brad Kutner | May 18, 2015

Topics: Greater Richmond Convention Center, RVA comics, Wizard World Comic 2015

Wizard World Comic Con swooped into RVA last year brining a mess of
[Read more…] about Wizard World Comic Con returns to RVA with Henry Winkler, Sean Astin, Billy Dee Williams, Kristin Bauer, Linda Blair, and a so much freaking more

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