bleedingcool.com: ronin bebop preview
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Bleedingcool.com: Ronin Bebop PreviewTRANSCRIPT
This was a fun collection of wacked out stuff to put together. Most of
which has not seen the light of day since the mid eighties and early ninties
(and I’m sure it shows), and some of the rest has never been published.
Either way, it was a blast to do at the time, especially in between the TMNT
madness, the Tundra publishing and Museum adventures, on top of the
Underwhere and Melting Pot books…and well, way to many other things to
mention, but somewhere along the way I found the time to do these. And
had the pleasure of working with some pretty cool guys as well.
Thanks to all my brothers from other mothers.
THE VERY ANGRY SEVEN!
A classic example in this series of explorations is the first one out of the
box—“THE VERY ANGRY SEVEN!” If I remember correctly, Eric,
Simon, and I decided to create the next huge licensing property… mutant
animals worked once, why not again? Well, after a bunch of doodles, phone
conversations, and planning…it was decided Eric and I would fly over to
Simon’s studio in England and bang out a twenty four page story that would
set the world on fire! Millions for all involved, Ferrari’s in every drive way!
What we ended up with is something barely publishable (thanks Budweiser!),
but a trip I will always remember for the rest of my life. Those really were
some of the best of times.
Enjoy it, and I’ll see you in the next chapter break.
COVER BY: Simon Bisley
BOOK DESIGN: Lorenzo Sperlonga
CONTENTS
e THE VERY ANGRY SEVEN: By Kevin Eastman, Eric Talbot, and Simon Bisley.
Letters and Colors by Altered Earth Arts
e NO GUTS OR GLORY: By Kevin Eastman
e BIZ AND BUZZ: By Kevin Eastman and Simon Bisley
Design and letters by Lorenzo Sperlonga
Colors by Robert Dunas
e INFECTIOUS: By Kevin Eastman
e THUMP’N GUTS: By Kevin Eastman and Simon Bisley
Lettering and colors by Steve Lavigne and Mark Martin
e ZOMBIE WAR: By Kevin Eastman, Tom Skulan, and Eric Talbot
PUBLISHERKevinEastman
VICEPRESIDENTHowardJurofsky
MANAGINGEDITORDebraYanover
SUBSCRIPTIONMANAGERPatHayward
RONINBEBOP is published by METAL MAMMOTH, INC. 100 N. Village Avenue, Suite 12,
Rockville Centre, NY 11570 All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced without the written permission of the copyright holders,
except short excerpts for review purposes.
All stories and artwork is copyright by the guys that worked on them. 2008
INFECTIOUS
YES, this is the most bizarre story I have ever done. I think it came from
seeing a bunch of twisted stories about serial sex killers over the years—
most of which were men, and thought, “What if you had the twisted mind
of a demon/male sex predator in the body of a female? I know I was in
between marriages at the time, I had too many female friends, and was
always in admiration of the “power” they have over men, and most of them
don’t even realize it. For the right woman, or the wrong one, with that “all
consuming” lust, a man would do ANYTHING to own her. Can anyone say
Helen of Troy?
At the same time, I did then, and still do now, believe in the power of love—
true love can conquer all. Redemption.
So I started playing with these two concepts, lots of story notes, then a loose
treatment, and about eighteen pages of layouts when I realized it wasn’t
working, it seem to simple to figure out, to typical and boring—but I had
recently read about a screenwriter that was in the same position with a script
he had written, and in total frustration threw the entire thing up in the air—
and as it fluttered to the floor had a brilliant thought…however he picked it
up, with a few tweaks here and there, was how he’d finish it.
So that’s what I did, threw roughly twenty pages into the air at the studio, I
picked them up--and left them in that order. I did add a few bridge pages to
that help beat out the rest of the story, and there you have it.
The original comic was published in the early ninties, wrapped in a cover that
was inspired by the 3D work Dave McKean and Bill Sienkiwiez were doing
at the time—and if you are feeling really saucy, the next time you see me at
a show, ask me why the cover is worth $20,000 dollars to me.
If you’re still reading after this story, I’ll be back with you to introduce the
next.
THUMP’N GUTS
Back in the early eighties, after the $1.50 cover priced TMNT #1 shot up to
$25 bucks a copy on the collectors market, there was a HUGE boom in the
publishing of black and white comics. It seemed like in the span of a year,
the first issue of ANY new black and white comic would sell 150,000 copies-
-thanks to “collectors” flooding into comic shops, looking to make a killing
on the resale of these “collectors items” when the real sales figures should
have been less than a few thousand at most. Less than a year later, everyone
woke up, and the market died, taking quite a few comic shops and
distributors with it. This was called the black and white “Boom and Bust”
and many people still say we, Peter and I, started it. Crazy huh?
Fast forward to the Image Comics years, add into the mix all the new
multi-covered, trading card inserted, embossed covered, main stream
publishers efforts—chuck in thousands of “new collectors” looking to put
their kids through college by buying 400 copies and trying to resell the “rare”
first issues of a seven million copy press run comic (think “Death of
Superman”) and the business was REALLY booming. Now that my friends,
is crazy!
Of course, that too ended, but it took a few years, and when it went down,
it went down big time. Many, MANY more publishers, and distributors, and
comic shops went out of business. Towards the end, although we didn’t
know how close the end was, Biz and I decided we’d try to make a point to
the “collectors” out there—we’d do an ALL NEW superhero book, with
three endings, three different covers, six different trading cards, a poster, and
twenty dollar bills randomly inserted into a pre-marked up poly bagged
issues--limited to 100,000 copy press run. Now THAT would be really
collectible!
The most important part of the packaging was a “little card” that explained
what was collectable, the first appearance of Superman in Action comics,
and what was not--seven million copies of the death of Superman. Didn’t
work, the market already had two feet in the grave by the time the issue came
out, the point missed--but in the end we ended up with a really cool comic.
In the following pages, you get to see all the covers and endings.
Enjoy, and I’ll see you one more time for the final adventure.
ZOMBIE WAR
Zombies, Zombies, Zombies—always loved them, always will! From “Dawn
of the Dead” onward, I was a hopeless case—the more blood, gore, flesh
ripping, eyeball popping, gut twisting, and screaming the better! Wanted to
draw one for a long time, and after talking about it WAY TO MUCH with
Tom Skulan and Eric Talbot, we kicked it into high gear, and collectively
plotted out an idea we all liked, and one we hoped hadn’t been done before
—a mysterious comet, a crash landed stranded alien, a female military detec-
tive, hot on the apocalypse trail, and ALL the DEAD SOLDIERS of the
world coming back to life to destroy the world—one bite at a time! What
more could you ask for?
Much like most all of the TMNT stories, as well as all the works I did with
Simon Bisley, I hand wrote out the basic treatment, collecting all of our
discussions and thoughts, and then started breaking down the story to a
general page count, then jumped into the layouts.
The funniest part of this layout process, is I did the entire storyboards dur-
ing plane flights over a period of about a year! I was flying a lot back then,
doing tons of signings and conventions, traveling to the West coast for work
on many of the TMNT entertainment projects, and it was nearly impossible
to find quiet time to draw unless I was on a plane.
Anyway, my goal was to keep a few steps ahead of Eric, who was light
tabling the layouts, and doing all the final pencils, inks, as well as the tones
on Duo Shade paper we’d come to love using on the TMNT comics. When
we finished we decided we’d publish the two volumes through a
Tundra/Fantaco Press co-publishing arrangement, to help promote each
other’s publishing adventures.
Alright gang, that’s the last intro from me—enjoy the final section of this
collection!
Rock on!
RONINBEBOP is two hundred and twenty four pages of madness! Six different tales
of insanity brought to you from the twisted minds of Kevin Eastman, Simon Bisley,
Eric Talbot, and Tom Skulan. It’s got it all; nasty flesh eating aliens and monsters in
“Zombie War”, body swapping serial killers in the lust drenched “Infectious”, over the
top superheroes fight the evil Mental Head for the sake of planet Earth in “Thump’n
Guts”, convicted murders are transported into the middle of an off world war as their
penance is “No Guts No Glory” , tiny mutant animals fight for their life and turf in
“The Very Angry Seven”, and Kevin Eastman and Simon Bisley’s comic character alter
egos come to life in the mad cap adventures of “Biz and Buzz!”
A combination of full color and Black and White stories, some of which appeared
as small press run independent publishing efforts in the early nineties, many have
never been published!