Posted in: Comics | Tagged: comicon, invincible, Matteo Scalera, robert kirkman, san diego, sdcc, skybound, walking dead

Skybound Keeps Busy and Kirkman "Will Die" Working on Walking Dead at SDCC

Published Sun, 21 Jul 2013 08:30:34 -0500

by Dan Wickline

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Hannah Means-Shannon writes for Bleeding Cool:

In the vortex surrounding the Walking Dead 10^th anniversary, All Out War coming this autumn. Things are going to escalate into "wars" and "huge conflicts on a large scale", releasing 12 issues in 7 months, Robert Kirkman says, with Dave Stewart coming onboard to color the covers on this run.

Updates from Kirkman included that starting in September, Skybound will be doing something uncommon in the US, releasing the Walking Dead trade paperbacks in Spanish. Also, Walking Dead Assault, a phone-based app game, can now be played both on Android and iPhone. The website Walking Dead.com is currently running contests and prizes leading up to the anniversary, and continues to form a hub for the TV show, comics, games and more.

Kirkman explained that Invincible issue #105 will be a good primer issue for those who haven't been reading, but it's also a new story for ongoing fans, setting the stage for things to come. #106 features an issue-long arm-wrestling match, according to Kirkman, but he may or may not be joking.

Joshua Williamson, Matteo Scalera, Josh Williamson, Matthew Roberts, and Chris Dingess also joined Kirkman on the panel to talk about upcoming works. Dingness, who originally worked with Kirkman on Battle Pope, was welcomed on board to Skybound.

New series Dead Body Road is coming in November. Artist Matteo Scalera described the desert-set action story based upon revenge. Kirkman describes it as "70's revenge movie on paper". There'll be mystery components, trying to track down the murderers of a loved one, and dealing death is certainly the goal of the hunt.

Recently released series Ghosted sold out in its first issue imprint and is going into second. It's an "Oceans 11 type story set in a haunted house", Josh Williamson commented. A wealthy eccentric who wants to "steal" a ghost for his antiquarian collection forms the crux of the story that follows a team of thieves grappling with the task. The team announced that this mini series has now been officially announced as ongoing based on the success of its first issue.

David Schulner joined the panel, to applause, to talk about the series Clone, a "grounded sci-fi thriller" based on the idea of trying to save clones of yourself in a future world. Main character Luke sets out to find out who he is and where he comes from, as well as whether he is a clone himself or the original. The book's about "finding out who you are and being exposed to all the different versions of yourself that you could be had you taken a different road", Schulner said. The series is in issue 9 at the moment, but Schulner teased a major change in direction in issue #11. Schulner paused for a special announcement that the series has landed at Universal to be developed into a network TV show. Schulner will be writing the first episode, airing in 2014, with Robert Kirkman producing.

The Question and Answer session took over the panel fairly early on, and many fans were asking about the return or continuation of books on "indefinite hiatus" or lapse a the moment. A fan asked if, on the basis of Walking Dead's translation into other media, Invincible will ever reach TV format. Kirkman said he'd like that to happen, but as with the Walking Dead, the translation and side projects take awhile to develop. Nothing to report just yet on that front, he said.

David Schulner asked Chris Dingess, both of whom started at Skybound last year, how he's been handling the move from TV writing to comics. Dingess said the transition from TV writing to comics was very difficult for him, with a wake-up call on his first issue when he realized the amount of history he wanted to contain simply couldn't be contained in 20 pages. The economy of space in comics and the need to develop a relationship with the artist are also key issues, he said. Kirkman remembered well telling Dingess to divide his story at page 11 on the draft, and expand the first 11 pages into a whole issue to balance the storytelling to the format. But Dingess has been improving rapidly, Kirkman assured fans. "I felt like a moron", Dingess said, learning the ropes.

Kirkman could relate as a comic book writing trying to transition to script writing, often "forgetting the scene moves" so that he can drop dialogue and include non-verbal cues from characters. When fans asked about Kirkman's work on the TV show and how long he's prepared to do that, Kirkman said he plans to continue on the series as long as he can. "I'll die doing it", he said, though the show will have its own lifespan, which he's prepared to stick with.

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress. Find her bio here.

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