The panel begun with Cory, the Marketing Director for Oni
Press announcing the following, “Panels are boring and Oni Press Panels are not
boring so raise your hand at any time to ask a question or make a comment.”
This was like no other panel I’ve been too and was very fun because of that. I’m
going to keep the recap pretty loose and leave it the way that it played out so
that you can get a better feel for it. The panel consists of Rapper Adam WarRock, Tyler Crook and
Brian Hurtt.
They talk with Adam about the mixtape, while playing the
mixed tap. The tape is nerdcore rap and is all about Oni Presses books
including KO Super Pro, The Sixth Gun, Salt Water Taffy and Hopeless Savages.
Adam said it started off as a joke when the publisher asked
about, but then it started becoming serious then made a track about the Sixth Gun
and KO Super Pro. It really came together when he started finding the right
beats for the songs. Adam continues saying it seemed like a no brainer to do a
project like that, but had approached other companies and they either didn’t
respond or said they did not want to have anything to do with it.
Brain Hurtt – I’ve had people tell me that they started
reading the book Sixth Gun because of the rap.
You can get the mix tape from AdamWarrock.com for free!
(Which I did and it’s pretty damn good!)
Q – What made you pick the books you did?
Adam - Used to co-host a podcast on Comic Alliances,
whittled down the list and some made it just because I had an idea for it or
others didn’t because I couldn’t come up with an idea or find the right music.
Every Friday he puts his notes on a song on the blog and his
back story of how the beat was chosen and his interaction with the creator.
Adam use to practice law and has been called the Daredevil
of Music.
New Salt Water Taffy 4 coming out in April. Now listening to the Salt Water Taffy track.
At this point I’m not cleaning up this post since it’ll be
impossible to recap this any other way.
Possessions – Kids book about a pit demon. Good titles in
their kids book and the line is ever growing. Possessions two came out this
last week. Volume two is black and white and blue whereas the first volume is
black and white and green.
Oni Press FCBD – Power Lunch and Sketch Monsters
Two books coming out in October that is all ages and full
color. 
Power Lunch – About a boy who discovers that what he eats
gives him powers. Carrots allow him to see through walls, apples make him
indestructible. His mother tells him he’s allergic to everything to keep him
from discovering it.
Sketch Monster is about a girl that draws her feelings in a
book and then the monsters she draws escape and she must capture them.
Spontaneous is going to be another FCBD that is going to be
the first issue to launch the new monthly series.
Courtney Crumrin Tales – The League of Ordinary Gentlemen coming
out in May.
The Tooth - Is an impacted molar that comes out of a guy’s
mouth and fights monsters. It’s every comic your mother ever threw away. Its
very man-thing 70’s horror style comics and pay homage to those types of books
in that era.
The book started off as a conversation between the two Six
Gun creators on a road trip to Chicago talking about those types of comics that
they used to read as kids. Hurtt said it sounded like a terrible idea, but that
the end product which releases on May 25 is much better than he could imagine.
One Soul – Took the author Ray Fawkes a year to figure out
how to do it; then another year to figure out how to draw it. Each of the
eighteen panels on the page are their own character panels. And it’s the same
character in the same panel on each page and the comic goes from each
characters life to death. Basically you can read just that characters story or
you can read the book like normal. I can’t even recap this but it’s going to be
amazing.
It received a star (which is a big deal) on Booklist.
Now they’re making me wish I hadn’t missed the c2e2 panel.
Cory the marketing director has read the book 6 times and
actually hates three of the characters, but he’s that passionate about the
work.
Sixth Gun – Being described as Lord of the Rings in the
west. Went through several pages of Sixth Gun and picked the panels to showcase
Hurtt’s visual storytelling abilities.
Hurtt said that the gator is twice the size as the one
described in the script; hates drawing chains because of the sixth issue. Now
he hates drawing owls. Joking about writing about a giant owl made of owls
wrapped in chains.
First trade paper is out for The Sixth Gun and volume two
comes out in June.
Hurtt penciled, inked, colored and lettered the book himself
for six months on time. It only takes a break for the trade. Which is actually
very impressive in comics.
Petrograd by Philip Gelatt Tyler Crook - A fictional tale of the assassination of Rasputin based on
actual new info that the British government created spies in order to kill him
and this was before spies existed, which basically means they created it during
World War I.
Looking at great preview pages.
Tyler Crook is the new artist on BPRD and Petrograd was his
first published work. Was working on Petrograd and showed Mike Migola at Long
Beach Comic Con. Mike told him to befriend him on Facebook. Went home excited
to send him a request and found one from Mike already in his inbox. Art took
2-1/2 years with a day job. Used his own memories of Prague and others were
more exact from photos for the art.
The scene in which he the plot to kill Rasputin was tough to
do. Tyler would wake up and draw his death sequence for 8 hour and go to sleep
and wake up and do it again. Finally he was like, “This guy won’t die!”
Tyler Crook is doing the 14th issue of Sixth gun.
Petrodgrad, BPRD and Sixth Gun 14 all come out in August.
Q - Was Rasputin modeled on Alan Moore? That was a running joke he had, he used to say
that it was
Alan Moore after being told they were doing a Watchmen 2.
Q - Did you color it?
Yes, that’s water color. (By the way it looks great.)
That basically wrapped up the interactive panel since there
was a lot of just extra stuff happening that escaped my recap. Very fun and
great to hear about the titles coming from Oni, hopefully we have coverage of
most of these titles.