Welcome to the 10th installment of the new Leave Your Spandex @t the Door!
Another double bill this week! Yesterday I posted the advance reviews column along with my report of Alan Moore’s talk.
Today, I’m happy to welcome a fresh face, Drew Melbourne, who is making his comics debut next week with his first comic ARCHENEMIES #1 from Dark Horse. The solicitation reveals:
ArchEnemies #1 (of 4)
Writer: Drew Melbourne
Penciller: Yvel Guichet
Inker: Joe Rubinstein
Letterer: Jim Keplinger
Colorist: Rick Hiltbrunner
Genre: Action/Adventure, Humor
Ethan has no idea that Vincent, his roommate, is the villainous Underlord. Vincent has no clue that Ethan is the superhero called Star Fighter. In their costumed identities, they’re mortal enemies, but as Ethan and Vincent they’re the best of . . .wait, NO, as Ethan and Vincent they STILL hate each other’s guts. Can comics’ ultimate, super-powered odd couple keep their secrets secret AND learn to live together in peace? ArchEnemies is high-concept superhero action comedy drama times eleven. In our debut issue, it’s a battle of wills as Ethan and Vincent try to drive each other OUT of the apartment and OFF the lease. But, in a moment of weakness, will one roommate go too far? [SPOILER ALERT: Yes. Yes, he will.]
Written by Drew Melbourne (stand-up comedian, South Bronx public school teacher, and freelance writer), with pencils by Yvel Guichet (Batman: Harley Quinn; X-Men Unlimited) and inks by comic book veteran Joe Rubenstein (Formerly known as the Justice League and “practically everything else at some point over the past several decades!”)
“¢ This “Superpowered odd couple” gives a fresh take on the mismatched roommate genre and the never-ending battle between superheroes and supervillains!
Publication Date: Apr 05, 2006
Format: Full color, 32 pages
Price: $2.99
Manolis: Welcome to the Nexus, Drew! Lt’s kick things off. How did you meet with Yvel Guichet? I understand he was involved with the project before you even pitched to Dark Horse.
Drew: That’s correct. I wish I had an exciting story like, “We were at a cocktail party for the Pope, when”¦” but the truth is pretty boring:
When I was first looking for an artist, I put up an online classified ad at DigitalWebbing.com. I got about a hundred responses of varying quality, but Yvel’s work stood out because (1) he had the chops, and (2) he had the track record.
(For those who don’t know, Yvel’s past credits include work on JLA and the Superman and Batman titles.)
Anyway, to make a long story end: Yvel read the script, he liked it, and he agreed to do the book. A week later, we met up in a Starbucks off Union Square to plan out the look and feel of the series.
(And then the Pope said, “No! I meant PAPAL bull!”)
Manolis: Can you introduce us to the two main characters and their situation?
Drew: Sure thing: Ethan Baxter and Vincent Darko are grudging roommates with more in common than they think. Slobby Ethan is secretly the stellar-powered superhero called Star Fighter, and neurotic Vincent is secretly his sworn enemy, the nefarious Underlord. As Star Fighter and the Underlord, they hate each other. But as Ethan and Vincent, they hate each other EVEN MORE.
It’s like if Oscar and Felix from The Odd Couple were secretly the black and white spies from Spy vs. Spy. With superpowers.
Manolis: How did they meet and end up living together? What did that Flatmate Wanted ad go like?
Drew: Were you thinking of something like”¦
“ROOMMATE WANTED! Ideal roommate should not be able to recognize me if I’m wearing glasses and should except hurried excuses like ‘I’ve got to go”¦ buy”¦ a thing”¦ for”¦ something!’ on faith. Non-smoker/Non-supervillain preferred.”
Actually, we’re saving the precise “how they met” story for down the road. (Probably for a zero issue or a “very special issue of ArchEnemies.”) But in broad strokes, it’s the typical New York roommate story:
Ethan and Vincent barely knew each other when they agreed to be roommates, and it wasn’t until after they signed their lease that they began to realize just how incompatible they were. Now, as much as they dislike each other, neither wants to move out and let the other one have the apartment.
Manolis: How long have they been enemies in their alternate identities? Was that before they moved in?
Drew: Both the becoming enemies and the moving in are fairly recent developments. (Two or three months, tops.) We’re still in the early stages of both relationships, in that our two leads hate each other, but they still don’t really KNOW each other.
We may skip the set up, but issue one is still very much “the beginning” for these two.
Manolis: I’m guessing these two have been living together sometime before we as readers are introduced to them here. What events kicks off this mini series? Who is the one to first discover the othe’s secret?
Drew: The first issue centres on Vincent’s efforts to join a secretive criminal organization called the Masked Circle. Vincent’s two biggest obstacles? His archenemy and his roommate. Now, obviously, I can’t tell you whether Vincent makes it into the Masked Circle or not, but I can say that the Masked Circle play a key role throughout the series.
As to who discovers who’s secret first? Well, as early as the second issue, Ethan is pretty sure that he’s blown his secret identity to shreds. But, as the cliché goes, appearances can be deceiving.
Manolis: Having lived in halls of residence for 3 years now, and looking at the preview pages, I can easily identify the party animal and neat freak flatmate archetypes. Who do you expect the readers to identify with more? How about you?
Drew: I don’t believe in guess work, so I created a psychological survey to answer that question precisely:
ArchEnemiesOnline.com/Survey1.html
On a more serious (but less scientifically accurate) note, the series certainly begins with familiar archetypes, but it doesn’t end there. Readers who identifies strongly with Vincent in the first issue may be surprised to find themselves identifying with Ethan in issue two. Readers who think they understand who Vincent is by issue two may be surprised by what they find out about him in issue three. And so on.
Personally, I identify strongly with both characters.
Manolis: What kind of flatmate are you?
Drew: I really am the worst of both worlds. I’m lazy and messy like Ethan and awkward and reclusive like Vincent. But I’m much mellower than either of them, which helps tremendously.
Manolis: To what lengths do these guys go to keep their identities secret?
Drew: Well, for one thing, Ethan wears a wig! The Star Fighter costume has a blond wig sewn into it. It’s the perfect disguise! “You can’t be Star Fighter! You’re a red head!”
The wig is my nod to Clark Kent. Or maybe to Gene Hackman?
And Vincent has a spooky computer modulated voice as the Underlord. It’s an even perfecter disguise! “You can’t be the Underlord! You don’t have a spooky computer modulated voice!”
Manolis: Who else rounds up the cast in this story?
Drew: Let me talk a little bit about Trish, because she’s a key player in ArchEnemies, and her role tends to get overshadowed by the Ethan-Vincent dynamic. Trish is a blue-haired free-spirit who works at Ethan’s office. There’s clearly something going on between the two of them, but even they don’t seem to know what that “something” is.
Trish makes some big decisions over the course of the mini-series, and those decisions have a huge impact on where Ethan winds up at the end of issue four.
You can find out more about Trish by visiting her MySpace page at MySpace.com/TrishDarrow. The most important part of the MySpace page is Trish’s weekly blog. Her blog entries are entirely, 100% in-continuity with ArchEnemies, and build upon the universe depicted in the comics. You can read her blog now for a sneak peek into the world of ArchEnemies, and you can reread it after the mini is over to se how everything ties together.
And if you have your own MySpace account, please add Trish as a friend!
Other important members of the cast include Vincent’s brother and sister, Ethan’s father, and Ethan’s superhero pal, Nanoman. But none of them have their own MySpace pages”¦
“¦yet.
Manolis: From comics: what is your favourite “odd couple”?
Drew: This is going to sound a little cliché, but I’m going to have to go with Blue Beetle and Booster Gold from Giffen and DeMatteis’ Justice League books. There’s just a really strong chemistry between those two. (I mean between “Blue Beetle and Booster Gold,” but the same could be said of Giffen and DeMatteis.)
Of course, the one thing that Ethan and Vincent have that Beetle and Booster don’t is a strong desire to kill each other. Yay, conflict!
Also, Blue Beetle is dead. That probably puts a damper on the whole “odd couple” thing. Maybe I should pitch a comic where Booster Gold creeps everyone out by dragging around Blue Beetle’s dead body, Weekend at Bernie’s style, and laughing, “BWAHAHA!”
Or, um, maybe I shouldn’t”¦
Manolis: What are the ingredients of great on-camera duets?
Drew: First off, you need some kind of conflict or tension between the characters. Otherwise it’s just boring. There’s a reason that CBS isn’t producing my “Two Guys Who Always Agree” pilot.
And second, despite the tension, the audience should never be rooting for one character to win out over the other. They should be rooting for the relationship itself. Which is why NBC never picked up my Friends spin-off, “Rachel Smacks Ross Around.”
In ArchEnemies, Ethan and Vincent are obviously enemies (heck, it’s right there in the title!), but thanks to their wacky living situation, they also have the potential to become friends. If I’ve done my job right, by the fourth issue, readers will be rooting for the friendship and NOT for one of them to win and the other to lose.
That said, in issue four, someone definitely loses. Big time.
Manolis: Archenemies is a concept that you came up with fairly recently. What was the very first idea for a comic you had? And what was the first idea you tried pitching?
Drew: When I was 2 or 3, I had this idea for a superhero called “Number Judge.” He looked kind of like a scribble with some numbers floating around him. I can’t remember what his back story was anymore, but I think it involved”¦ well, judging numbers. I know that sounds a little out there, but I was big into surrealism when I was 3.
I didn’t get around to pitching anything to comic book publishers until I was about ten. The first idea I submitted featured a Captain America knock-off called “Captain Colonial.” For the full story behind this sad, silly moment in my life, be sure to check out the back pages of ArchEnemies #1.
After the “Captain Colonial” fiasco, I went a couple decades without pitching anything. Then, a couple years ago, I got the itch for rejection again. I know there are going to be a whole bunch of aspiring writers who’ll hate me for this, but in my adult life I have only ever pitched two comics, and both of them have gotten picked up.
One, obviously, is ArchEnemies. The other is the infamous Heroes of Tomorrow pitch that won Top Cow’s “Pitch Us A Comic” contest a couple years back.
Top Cow has gone through some editorial restructuring over the past couple years, so I’m not sure if HoT will ever come out. BUT they paid me for the rights to Heroes of Tomorrow, so I can’t really complain.
Fans of my humiliation can rejoice though: I’m putting together a few pitches now, and I’m sure that AT LEAST one of them is sure to get the thumb’s down!
Manolis: You’ve recounted the Busiek incident before, but I’m not going to bother you with recounting it once again! (I’m nice, ain’t I?) Instead, can you tell me, if you had the chance to rename your two characters now, what would you call them?
Drew: Ultimately, ArchEnemies is the story of Ethan and Vincent. There codenames are sort of secondary. What I do like about the “Star Fighter” and “Underlord” codenames, though, is that they reflect the archetypal good/evil, light/dark, Heaven/Hell dichotomy.
As Star Fighter and the Underlord they’re larger than life, but when they take their masks off, they’re just ordinary, imperfect people. If I were going to change the codenames, I’d want to keep that iconic feel. I’d probably call them, um”¦
Are “Captain America” and “The Red Skull” taken?
Manolis: To what extent is this comic (auto)biographical? Have you pulled material from your own experiences or your friends’?
Drew: I think that’s unavoidable:
The roommate situations tend to be exaggeration of real situations I’ve been through”¦ Ethan’s workplace is in large part patterned after one of my old jobs… The Masked Circle is very similar to a criminal organization I once belonged too…
Most glaringly, Ethan’s cat is literally my own dead cat, who I have reanimated and astrally projected into my comic with the help of Grant Morrison, my personal shaman and savior”¦
“¦unless Grant Morrison is reading this. In which case, you know, it was the ‘shrooms talking.
Aaaaand that’s a wrap for this week! I’m waiting your comments and feedback through email to Manolis@gmail.com. If you self-publish your own comics or represent an indy comics company, add me to your press release list, and I will run your news in this space every week.
Manolis Vamvounis
a.k.a. Dr. Dooplove
