Posted in: Movies, NYCC | Tagged: Brooklyn Animal Control, Comics, entertainment, film, IDW Entertainment, kevin eastman, ted adams, tv

NYCC '15: IDW's Entertainment Panel 2016 Sneak Peek At Brooklyn Animal Control, Wynona Earp, Dirk Gently, And More

Hosted by IDW's Ted Adams, the panel started with an introduction to Wynona Earp, a comic that's coming back after previously being published by IDW about 5 years ago, and with a teaser peek at the new SYFY cable series spinning out of the comic. They are going to introduce the character Doc Holliday in the show. The wider mythology is going to present Wynona, despite being a "fuck up", being recruited to be a US Marshall, like her grandfather. Something that hasn't been announced yet is that main villain from the comics will be appearing in Season 1.

For Brooklyn Animal Control, appearing as a USA Network show following a comic, will have a showrunner who is also the comic writer, JT Perry. Thinking of how you could "practically" have werewolves living in the world today, it seemed like a good fit to have Brooklyn and New York as a setting, said Rick Jacobs. The short version of the story is "social services for werewolves". How could we have grounded werewolves in a modern story? The series addresses these questions. We see werewolves on TV in various ways, but IDW hope to do something very different with the show by acting like "they are here amongst us" and showing both sides in the show.

Just like any city workers, Brooklyn Animal Control are underfunded and have to fight werewolves, but no one can know about it. Everyone thinks they fight dogs for a living. The show goes into filming soon. Stephen Graham, Jane Alexander, and James Callis have been cast in the show so far. They hope for the show to debut next Fall in 2016 if all goes well. The print comic book will be arriving in December 2015 from IDW. I asked what choices the team has made in terms of the presentation of werewolves compared to other series and films, and the answer was somewhat "hybrid", half and half from "full wolf" and semi-human. It's been a "design challenge" to make decisions on how they will be presented. They started with a skeleton, actually, so they have a "creature that works".

Kevin Eastman joined the panel to talk about "things at IDW that are not Turtle-related". Fistful of Love has been remastered and is coming out monthly for 4 months. Then there's Lost Angeles, which is a post-apocalyptic LA story, which will be coming soon. Eastman praised IDW's projects for being "passion-driven".

Ted Adams introduced the Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, which IDW developed as a comic and as a visual narrative at the same time, as originally created by Douglas Adams. Adams said that Gently solves crimes "by just being there". He solves crimes by his presence, and being in the right place at the right time. Adams and David Ozer laughed that Adams is a "holistic publisher" in the same way. Max Landis will be writing the show. It's set up with BBC America in the USA, and is in development as a co-production. AMC Studios is one of their partners on the series. They hope it will be on the air in late 2016. The comics will give people a "step into this world" of the story.

Asked if they have any animation series in the works at IDW Entertainment, Adams said that yes, they do, an animated series based on Ben Templesmith's Wormwood series. Asked if they'd like to do more with Transformers and Ghost Busters, Adams said that given the chance, they'd do it.

Asked what length the shows will be, Adams said they'll be hour-long dramas, and it'll be up to the networks how to present them.

Asked what level of violence or profanity will be included in the shows, the panel joked that legal documents are hilarious to read on this topic. It depends partly on the channels, and there are "levels", starting with HBO with total freedom, then moving downward. "To the extent that we can, we will push the envelope. Whatever our partners will allow, we will go for it". Adams added that it will partly determined by the types of stories involved. Brooklyn Animal Control will be quite violent as a werewolf story, while Dirk Gently will be less so.

Speaking of V Wars, originally a series of prose anthologies, then also ongoing comics, and now being adapted for TV, across all of those platforms, there will be some harmonizing. The show will not "mimic" the comic to closely, but ultimately it will build toward an "all out war" between those who have a "trigger" for vampirical thirst and those who don't. It has a board game coming out, so it is also a multi-platform property.

Speaking of Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse, based on Ben Templesmith's series, they said they are only just "getting started" but they'll be putting together some animation soon and taking it to studios.

Cobb is also a series in development, a "secret service conspiracy theory" story.

The panel commented that their hope and what they are seeing so far with their entertainment slate is that "every single thing we work on is going to get made", unlike many other companies where announcements are made and then fade away, Rick Jacobs said.

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