Posted in: Comics | Tagged: art baltazar, Brandon Jerwa, Dynamite Entertainment, eric trautmann, Li'l Dynamites, nick barrucci, tony lee

The Giant Interview For Li'l Dynamites

Waistcoat wearer and all around nice guy Tony Lee has been doing a few different peer-to-peer interviews with his fellow Dynamite Entertainment creators. Well, he got the mother-load assignment with his latest, interviewing just about everyone involved with the Li'l Dynamite five-week event starting off with the main man himself.

TONY LEE: Nick, what made you decide to do a 'Li'l' month at Dynamite, and why did you decide the books that you did?

NICK BARRUCCI: The short version is that we wanted a five week event for January to help celebrate our 10 year anniversary, and editorial put together a proposal for this project.  We decided that for our first five week event, it needed to be something cool.  Most publishers do serious five week events and they're cool, but we just wanted to go out of the gate with something different and as I've said before, fly or die, this is going to be a fun five week event.  The only request I had when Joe and Molly put together the proposal was that there be some really cool writers attached. It was around Baltimore ComiCon, so my biggest request—since we had so many cool Dynamite writers already on board and we had Art and Franco—was to really try to make it work and get Roger Langridge to participate.  I'm a huge fan of his work and when we approached him, he picked Evil Ernie and his take to create Li'l Awful Ernie is unbelievably fun.  The characters in the books were really decided by the writers, Joe and Molly.

TL: How did you approach the team for each book?

NB: That's really something for Joe and Molly to answer.

TL: Molly has been trying to get something like this off the board for years – what made you decide that the time was right now?

NB: See my answer to #1.  Five week event, cool project, a lot of fun, the right creative talent; it has everything we want to go for it going for it.  With a little bit of luck it will be commercially successful.  We know it already is creatively.

TL: So when can we expect the Dynamite multi title 'Li'l' crossover event? You know it's screaming out to be done!

NB: Jesus, have you been in our Editorial meetings.  Of course we're planning it ;-)

TL: When you pushed for this at Dynamite, did you ever expect the results that we'll see this January?

MOLLY MAHAN: Not at all, and I feel like I'm the luckiest editor in the world because of it. When Li'l Dynamites first got the green light, there was a part of me thinking I'd have to do it all myself. Script, art, colors (I can barely stay within the lines), letters—everything. But then pitches started rolling in, then talent got attached, then Roger Langridge agreed to be involved—on every book!—and now everything is coming together in such a way that I can hardly believe I'm not dreaming. Everyone involved has been so helpful and creative and delightful that it should be obvious to how much joy has gone into these books come January.

ART BALTAZAR AND FRANCO

TL: What's the biggest problem when taking on a project like this?

FRANCO: Time! But we make the time cause it's one of the things I loved watching as a kid so getting the temperament of the characters is easy for us.

ART BALTAZAR: It's not really a problem, you mean a challenge?  Yeah, the biggest challenge would be trying to put ALL of your ideas into a one shot. We came up with so many ideas we could easily fill a 6 issue series at the very least.

TL: Even though the books at 'li'l', in the same manner as DC's TINY TITANS, there are a lot of adults who read and love these stories. How do you write for two audiences at the same time?

FRANCO:  We don't.  People ask us that all the time and the answer is simply that we don't.  We write what makes us laugh and if it makes us laugh we feel that others will find it funny as well.

AB: Yeah, We write books for fun and that are for everyone!

FRANCO:  Yeah, humor is universal, doesn't matter how old you are- funny is funny!

TL: What in jokes and easter eggs can readers expect when reading these?

FRANCO:  Well, if we told you that, there wouldn't be anything left to read!

AB:  Yeah, but we can say that Adama has thick eyebrows and Boomer hangs out with Muffet…and Cylons!  Lots of Cylons!

TL: You've already done this twice with TINY TITANS and ITTY BITTY HELLBOY, How does LI'L BATTLESTAR GALACTICA come into the mix?

FRANCO: We get a call from Dynamite and we say yes!

AB:  It's the same universe.  Everything we do feels like our universe so this is the next thing in line.

JIM ZUB

TL: What's the biggest problem when taking on a project like this?

JIM ZUB: I don't know if it's a 'problem' as much as it's a 'challenge', but I think finding the core of what makes Red Sonja work as a whole and then bringing those traits to a younger character is the most important part of the project.

TL: Even though the books at 'li'l', in the same manner as DC's TINY TITANS, there are a lot of adults who read and love these stories. How do you write for two audiences at the same time?

JZ: Kid-friendly comics can (and should) be focused on enjoyable stories no matter who's reading them. I tried not to over think it and worry about catering to one audience or the other. If I tell an entertaining adventure story I think it works for kids or adults.

TL: What in-jokes and easter eggs can readers expect when reading these?

JZ: Skullkickers readers know that I love using sound effects that aren't really sound effects, more like ridiculous descriptive terms, and a few of those find their way into this Li'l Sonja story.

TL: With Skullkickers you've shown you can write humor and sorcery with a healthy influx of swords – how was it taking Sonja and giving her a li'l makeover?

JZ: Writing fantasy is always a blast. In this case the protagonist is younger and it's not as crass or gory, but a lot of the same elements are still there – fun adventure, big action, and a good helping of sass. I really hope readers enjoy this adventurous romp of the Wee-Devil With A Sword. :)

ROGER LANGRIDGE

TL: What's the biggest problem when taking on a project like this?

ROGER LANGRIDGE: For me, it was familiarizing myself with the characters the "Li'l" versions are based on, because they were all unknown quantities to me. I had to do some homework, fast!

TL: Even though the books at 'li'l', in the same manner as DC's TINY TITANS, there are a lot of adults who read and love these stories. How do you write for two audiences at the same time?

RL: Usually I just write something I think I would enjoy personally, and then hope I'm not the only one who finds this stuff funny. I think "writing down" to what you think children might like is always a bad idea. Far better to try and find your own inner child and write for him. Kids can smell being talked-down-to a mile off, in my experience. If I'm enjoying it, hopefully there are some other adults who are as well.

TL: What in jokes and easter eggs can readers expect when reading these?

RL: Most of the in-jokes have very little to do with the source material and more to do with my love of old newspaper strips. There are a bunch of Little Orphan Annie references in Little Awful Ernie, as the name suggests. I couldn't resist having blank-eyed Daddy Warbucks as a zombie!

TL: You must be one of the best go-to guys in the business with this after your success on the Muppet Show and your spectacular Thor: The Mighty Avenger all ages comics. How did you approach such a cult character like Evil Ernie?

RL: With terrible ignorance, I'm afraid. I'd never heard of Evil Ernie before I was asked to do one of the Li'l Dynamites books; I just liked the name, and thought a kid who thought he was a badass but really wasn't might have strong comic possibilities. When I was send some Evil Ernie stories to read and found out about Smiley, the whole double-act dynamic going on there reassured me that I'd made the right choice. But I was totally winging it!

BRANDON JERWA

TL: What's the biggest problem when taking on a project like this?

BRANDON JERWA: Problem?! There are zero problems for me. If anything, I'm now hoping that I can devote a fair amount of time to writing more all-ages comic stories. This has been an amazing experience, and it fulfills one of the career goals I set for myself when I started writing comics over a decade ago.

TL: Even though the books at 'li'l', in the same manner as DC's TINY TITANS, there are a lot of adults who read and love these stories. How do you write for two audiences at the same time?

BJ: There is definitely a balance that has to be maintained, but I have a 14-year-old son, and I have done quite a bit of elementary-to-high-school level writing workshops, so I feel like I understand that audience just as well as I do the adults. Kids are so much smarter, and more culturally aware, in the 21st century. That makes it a little bit easier. At the end of the day, all I can do is write a story that feels proper to my own sensibilities, and then go over it with a fine-tooth comb until I'm sure the tone is where it needs to be.

TL: What in jokes and easter eggs can readers expect when reading these?

BJ: Well, I'm not going to give them away here! I will say that fans of the classic SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN and BIONIC WOMAN TV shows will have plenty of nods and winks coming their way, but not in a way that interrupts the story. There are a couple of moments where I pay tribute to some classic comics of my youth, and those will be fairly obvious.

My son and I also worked on the PANTHA newspaper-style strips that will be included in Eric Trautmann's Li'l Vampi book; those strips are chock-full of in-jokes and gags.

TL: I know something like this has been a passion of yours for years, especially with your family's connections to autism – how personal did Li'l Bionic Kids become for you?

BJ: My younger brother Joe is autistic, so I found an immediate connection with the stories of Steve and Jaime, who are both "different" from their classmates, and the difficulties that kids like Joe can sometimes face. It isn't just about being handicapped, or differently-abled; I wanted to do something that would have some relativity to any kid who feels like they're on the outside of the social circle, for whatever reason. You have to be careful not to get too weepy or preachy when you take that route, but I like to think that I found a happy medium.

ERIC TRAUTMANN

TL: What's the biggest problem when taking on a project like this?

ERIC TRAUTMANN: I'm not sure there is one. It's like any other writing project; the challenge is always the same. How do you approach the material in a way that tells the story you set out to tell.

TL: Even though the books at 'li'l', in the same manner as DC's TINY TITANS, there are a lot of adults who read and love these stories. How do you write for two audiences at the same time?

ET: I think the secret to good "all-ages" fare is to be simply that: a story for any age. Nothing is worse for an adult reader than a story that's pandering, or worse, talking down to a younger reader. Treat the audience with respect, and tell a story that serves that need, and you're fine.

So, in the case of Li'l Vampirella, I wanted to include hallmarks of the traditional Vampirella story—monsters and supernatural elements—and present them in a way that could appeal to as broad an audience as possible.

TL: What in jokes and easter eggs can readers expect when reading these?

ET: Lots and lots of character and creature cameos, for one, and I'm pretty happy with a gag I included involving the "controversial" Vampirella-in-pants stuff I did on the regular monthly book.

TL: You're known for a far more 'grown up' style of writing, but like Brandon you've wanted to do something in this genre – what was the first thing that came to you when you were given Vampirella?

ET: I wanted to do something that had a bit of Archie's Riverdale (hence a small town environment—the fictional burg, Stoker, Maine), and include elements I loved in old Hardy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown books when I was a kid. There's probably a bit of Li'l Lulu in Vampi's attitude, as well, the young protagonist that inadvertently gets in over her head and has to solve the problem before it gets completely out of control.

Li'l Dynamites debut this January.

Tony Lee is also working on a comic for Dynamite, Starbuck, with issue 1 shipping this month. 

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