Per a report today at THR, and hot on the heels of Kingsman: The Secret Service accumulating $370 million worldwide, comes the news that Mark Millar is teaming up with producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura to adapt his Image superhero saga with Frank Quitely, Jupiter’s Legacy.
di Bonaventura told the outlet why Jupiter’s Legacy was a good fit for movie-goers:
What appealed to me was the emotional weight of the family dynamic in Shakespearean fashion. It is also unique in a world where there are many similar super hero movies and IP.
Legacy, which tells the story of a group of superheroes who first got their powers in the 20’s after the discovery of a mysterious island, and their children who haven’t quite lived up to their standards, recently wrapped its first five issue arc and has a prequel series, entitled Jupiter’s Circle, releasing today.
Currently writers are meeting with the team to adapt the material, but given di Bonaventura’s success rate (his credits include the Transformers and GI Joe franchises), it’s likely that we’ll see Jupiter’s Legacy move quickly into production. The producer is also working on an adaptation of Millar’s MPH.
Millar is repped by Paradigm and attorney Harris Miller.
By Davey Nieves
JUPITER’S LEGACY #5
Story: Mark Millar, Frank Quitely
Art: Frank Quitely, Peter Doherty
Publisher: Image Comics
Full disclosure, I never pick up Mark Millar books when they first hit the stands. It isn’t because I don’t like the man’s work, because I think he’s tremendously talented and few writers’ craft dialogue as well as he does. I don’t know maybe it’s because Robin Williams always said it’s hard to understand Scotsmen. Who knows? Well it’s been over 10 months since the last issue of Jupiter’s Legacy and about 10 years since I’ve read a Millar comic book that wasn’t in trade form. So we’re all in for a bumpy ride.
Based on my read though of Jupiter’s Legacy #5, I can safely say I’ve missed out on one hell of tale by Millar and one of the best comic artist of this generation Frank Quitely. Issue five is the conclusion to the first book of hopefully many more to come. The dapper, matter- altering, superhuman hunting, villain Barnabas Wolfe tracks down a young boy named Jason who happens to have a lineage of superheroes in his blood. Jason and his super powered parents Chloe and Brandon battle Wolfe and his government army to keep from being thrown in this world’s version of the Guantanamo Bay.
Millar crafts another superb villain in Barnabas. He gets quick to the enticement of the character as he opens with Wolfe using his cunning to deceive a secretary into revealing herself to be an illegal superhuman. Throughout this issue the entire cast manages to have earned moments in these pages from Chloe demonstrating her overprotective mothering nature by chewing out her son on the moon to Jason who’s just trying to follow the footsteps of his family and rally the remaining superhumans. I haven’t read the first four issues but it appears as though this comic rounds out this first volume’s call to arms theme nicely and leaves readers in a place where they will definitely want more.
For all the words purveyed in this issue, it wouldn’t feel whole without what Frank Quitely brings to the table. Jupiter’s Legacy is yet another example of why Quitely is one of the best visual storytellers in comics. His use of body language and posture make the pages come to life. The visual design of these characters is what he excels at; simplicity that catches the eye. Peter Doherty’s color work is a subtle compliment to the artist’s masterful line work and blends cool and warm tones very smoothly.
The 10-month gap between issues might be a deterrent for anyone who’s been following this series since issue one. However there’s enough in issue five to justify the wait. If we scored books this one would come in damn near perfect. Jupiter’s Legacy mixes influences such as Watchmen, The Incredibles, and V for Vendetta to craft Millar’s best superhero project since Civil War.
Anyone else for casting Christoph Waltz as Barnabas Wolfe?
If hockey is on your mind and Avengers Assemble is on your netflix follow Dave on twitter and leave him a cat gif.
Wow speaking of comics crafts, coloring is definitely one of the key components of today’s comics golden age, yet one of the least understood, and Nathan Fairbairn presents a fascinating process post on how he colored Pax Americana, which has art by Frank Quitely. Among the insights—because Quitely’s coloring on his highly detailed art is so painstaking Fairbairn knew he could never equal it, but he had to try.
Pax Americana, written by Grant Morrison, is part of his Multiversity series, and also a take on Watchmen, and takes on Watchmen by Mark Millar and Warren Ellis. Multiversional indeed. The book has set Twitter all abuzz all week. Quitely’s art is stunning (and violent) as always, but the coloring is a powerful part of the effect of the book, dawn to small details of shadows.
And that’s just for starters! There’s a stunning amount of thought and care that goes into doing it right, which is why I usually just fake the hell out of it. On this book, though, I put in the effort.
And by “put in the effort” I mean “eventually asked Frank to do it for me when I couldn’t get it to look right.”
At any rate, this particular shadow was important. Frank told me he wanted the peace flag to cast the shadow of a mask on Harley’s face, which, symbolically, is so goddamn brilliant it makes me want to fly to Glasgow and hug the guy.
by Zachary Clemente
On the extremely busy Saturday of this past weekend’s New York Comic-Con, I had the sublime honor of interviewing Frank Quitely (pen name for Scottish artist Vincent Deighan) about his visual narrative process, the cycle of artistic influence, and his once and future work. This was a wild treat for me as Quitely stands as one of my favorite artists in comics. Quitely has worked on We3, Sandman: Endless Nights, Flex Mentallo, New X-Men, JLA: Earth 2, Batman & Robin, Jupiter’s Legacy, All-Star Superman and many more.
Comics Beat: Frank, you’re currently working on Jupiter’s Legacy [with Mark Millar] which is ending after 10 issues?
Frank Quitely: It’s actually two volumes, both five and five.
CB: I see. Something I’ve always loved about your work is how versatile your storytelling can be. Hearkening back to Flex Mentallo, there’s some interesting panel layouts, All-Star Superman is a little more cinematic and straightforward, and We3 deviates a lot. I’m wondering how you approach that you want to train the reader’s eye the way you start talking about the story through your art and panels.
FQ: When I started out, I didn’t know a lot about storytelling because I never got a formal training in comics. It ended up being kind of intuitive and my main thing was about trying to make it clear and interesting. You know, I wasn’t really thinking in terms of narrative flow, it was more just about clarity and trying to make it as good as possible. Gradually, over the years, I just became more interested in storytelling. There was a DC editor I worked with named Dan Raspler – the Lobo editor amongst other things. He was my editor on JLA: Earth 2 and before I did JLA, I did a short Lobo story for them and it was the first mainstream DC thing I’d done; I’d been working for Vertigo and Paradox for a couple years. I sent him the pencils and it was the best thing I’d done up to that point and I thought “he’s going to phone me back and tell me how good this is” and he didn’t phone for a week. I was really panicking by the time he phoned; he started the conversation with “dude, I don’t know how to tell you this…”
Basically what he said was my drawings were really lovely, but my storytelling was really boring. He went through and told me what I should be thinking about and that was kind of a real milestone. As it was, that book never came out for different reasons. For JLA: Earth 2, he made me fax a rough for every page because he wanted to see that I could do art that makes sense in rough with a sharpie, then I could do it properly.
CB: Sort of like doing thumbnails?
FQ: Yeah. In fact, the new version of [JLA:] Earth 2 has those thumbnails in it. That was a big leap for me.
CB: There’s a couple panels I’d like to ask you about, the first from We3. The one where it looks like the panel begins to turn across the page.
We3 by Frank Quitely & Grant Morrison
FQ: With the cat leaping through?
CB: Yes!
FQ: Grant [Morrison] and I sat together, both of us with pencils, trying to work out a way of doing this. [...] That kind of “turning the panels” was almost like windows that the cat was going though – that didn’t come right until the last minute because Grant was describing something to me but it was like he knew there was something there we could do but he couldn’t quite visualize it. It was just a case of me sitting, drawing stuff and then asking if we were getting closer – it was very collaborative.
CB: Do you think that kind of collaboration is where you find the best of your work coming out?
FQ: Um, sometimes. Sometimes it works that way and sometimes it’s nice just to be left alone and work it out myself. Like in Jupiter’s Legacy, in the first issue there’s kind of cube thing. In the script, Mark said something like “he puts them in this cell” and I got thinking about “cel” as in animation cel as well as “cell” like a prison cell and it just kind of came together very, very organically in a relatively short time. It really goes both ways.
CB: I actually wanted to ask about that panel. It’s beautiful how it breaks down all the way to the linework and builds it back up again. I find it an interesting visual discussion on comics.
Jupiter’s Legacy by Frank Quitely & Mark Millar
CB: Changing gears a bit, I’m curious about your influences. Not necessarily artistic influences, but what comics have influenced the way you want to do comics, the way your approach working on comics?
FQ: An early one was Hard Boiled by Frank Miller and Geof Darrow. I set out when I was maybe 20-something and when I saw that, I was really blown away by that. More recently Chris Ware’s Building Stories, it’s a masterpiece – the guy’s a genius. I’ve gone plenty – Akira, the big black and white collections of Akira. Moebius, particularly [his] short stories.
CB: The sheer breadth of his influence is remarkable and that’s something I wanted to touch on with you. In my opinion, you and your work occupy a peculiar place in the comics “family tree” where your catalog is intensely influential for many contemporary creators, but it’s not like you’ve gone away, you’re still pushing yourself. Do you find yourself in something of a loop, being influenced by people you might have influenced?
FQ: Oh, yeah.
CB: What is that like?
FQ: It’s really cool. It’s actually really cool. Two artist who work I really like a lot who’re younger than me are Amy Reeder and Becky Cloonan and both of them, in some way, found something in my work that they liked and there’s now something in their work that I like. With Amy in particular, she started off at Tokyopop and she was only interested in manga. Brandon Montclare, who she’s working with now [on Rocketgirl], was an editor at Tokyopop at the time and he gave her a bunch of comics that he wanted her to look at to kind of broaden her horizons a bit. When she first saw it, she didn’t like my work at all; there was nothing there that she liked. Brandon told her to ignore that she didn’t like my drawing but to look at was I was doing because I was going about it a different way from her. After a while, she did actually start liking it and that’s the kind of funny thing – she didn’t like it at all at first but once she kind of get into it, she got something from it and now her recent work on Rocketgirl is just phenomenal.
When I see stuff like that, I always feel slightly threatened by a lot of younger artists. Because to me, a lot of this stuff seems really fresh and I keep thinking “shit, man, I’m going to have to up my game.”
All-Star Superman by Frank Quitely & Grant Morrison
CB: Can that be a little thrilling?
FQ: Yeah – absolutely. I don’t want to get to a stage where I’m kind of quite happy with what I’m doing. Like every other artist I know, I see the mistakes in my work more than the good parts. Even things that work quite well, it always looks slightly better in my head. Every page I start I think “this is going to be the best one yet!” So I don’t want to get to a stage where I’m not influenced or threatened by other peoples’ work.
CB: That’s a very remarkable way to stay relevant. Though something I noticed is your lack of online presence. It seems being active on social media outlets is a big part for many comics creators. Is this something that’s never interested you?
FQ: You know, the thing is I can’t answer all my emails as it is, I answer maybe a quarter of my emails or something. So what’s the point of having Facebook? I’m already insulting enough people by not getting back to them. If I had a Facebook presence, I would never talk to anybody – I’d just never get back to them. Either you just that kind of person or you’re not, you know.
CB: Heading to the end, Jupiter’s Legacy will be wrapping up, what’s next?
FQ: “Pax Americana” – one of the Multiversity books at DC.
CB: And are there any dream projects? Characters you want to work on, people you want to work with, or your own stories you’d like to make?
FQ: I have written a bunch of short stories and some of them are thumbnailed. So at some point I want to get a collection out of just my own dumb stuff.
CB: That sound wonderful Frank, thanks for sitting down to chat.
FQ: Not a problem – thank you.
Frank Quitely lives in Scotland and draws some of the most amazing comics around. I encourage you to watch the 30-minute feature about him, part of a series called “What Artists Do All Day” produced by BBC4. His upcoming works are the next 6 issues of Jupiter’s Legacy and an issue of DC’s Multiversity called “Pax Americana.”
The good news is that the Frank Quitely art book is finally coming out! It’s called Graphic Ink: The DC Comics Art of Frank Quitely
and its out in June.
The bad news is…well it isn’t really bad news. It’s just Robin letting his inner catamite out again. And if you think I’m wrong just examine the look on Batman’s face.
In case you’re wondering, the book was announced long ago with a different look:
Not final cover. Indeed.
Another earlier version of the cover added more of Robin’s knee, making it a bit less…brief-tastic. Traditionally, as shown by covers and splash pages, many superheroes have a tendency to enter a fight crotch-first, I guess to frighten their enemies? A lot of our animal pals use similar techniques—the mandrill’s swollen red butt being a notable example. In that case, Quitely has done it again, with an image that rouses all kinds of allusions and echoes the primal nature of the superhero conflict. Maybe Kate Willaert will take this on in a future By Its Cover column?
[Via Facebook.]
Kapow Comics Convention took place over the last weekend, with several major publishers attending in semi-full force. Certainly at least, Dan DiDio, Joe Quesada and Eric Stephenson were all there, along with 2000AD and (I think!) IDW’s Chris Ryall. Here’s a little rundown of all the things people were treated to over the course of the two days, alphabetised for your viewing comfort.
Artists’ Alley:
A little empty! The artists’ alley was situated on the high balcony around one side of the event hall, and while superhero artists like Barry Kitson and Adi Granov enjoyed queues, there were several tables which were barely attended. I spoke a little to Al Davison about his current projects (cavaliers and roundheads and vampires and incredibly detailed artwork abound!), and noted that nobody on the surrounding tables had anybody talking to them. A little bit of a shame, but maybe I was just there at the wrong times.
CB Cebulski:
Still on his never ending Bob Dylan-esque tour of the world, looking for promising new artists, a fun game to play from time to time was to walk past CB Cebulski’s review table, and see how tired he looked. That man suffers for art!
Cup O’ Joe:
With nothing to announce, Joe Quesada immediately turned his panel over to fan questions, which led to a very interesting trend – something which you could see throughout the convention, actually, as time went on. Rather than asking about Avengers Vs X-Men or Spider-Man or the comics, almost every question was about the movies, and their impact, and the future of Marvel properties in alternative media. The focus was strongly on movies and TV, although the audience did come to ask a few questions about The Ultimates towards the end. Kieron Gillen asked if Namor was still a Marvel property, or if he was classed as part of the Fantastic Four family - and therefore off-limits for any potential Marvel films. To his relief, Namor is still in the hands of Marvel studios.
DC:
Dan DiDio and Bob Wayne were present, and hosted a few panels and interviews. DiDio dropped a few hints, but seemed to be keeping most things up his sleeves for announcement at SDCC. Among the teases we did get were the hint that a classic DC character would return to the New 52 soon, and be outed as homosexual; that there were no plans whatsoever to bring Wally West back into monthly comics, at least for the long-term future; and an interesting bit of discussion about Wonder Woman. DiDio believes that the reason Wonder Woman has never been as defined as, say, Superman or Batman, is because every new relaunch of her book throws her in a radically different direction. She’s either a goddess or not a goddess, or a war hero, or a secret agent, or any number of different personas. “You don’t see a Batman series where suddenly he’s a taco waitress”, DiDio joked, and noted that the new direction for her was something they wanted to keep for as long as possible, and have that ground and define her for future creative teams.
After his last interview, DiDio then went and wandered around the small-press tables for a good few hours or so, chatting to creators and picking up a few comics, happily.
Digital Comics:
A lot of small-trade a
It’s a little hard to believe the success Millar’s had. He went from kind of a second string Grant Morrison or Warren Ellis or Garth Ennis to having more success than all of them. I’m not knocking Mark, he’s really stepped into his own, but he didn’t start out that way, in my eyes. It’s been fun to watch
There was absolutely nothing innovative, new, fresh, or interesting about Jupiter’s Legacy… besides the art.
Won’t the general audience think it’s a sequel to JUPITER ASCENDING?