The Superhero Genre Has Come A Long Way

I’ve been re-watching the X-Men movies this week in anticipation of finally going to see X-Men: Day of Future Past. It’s hard to believe that 14 years have gone by since the original X-Men first hit theaters, and a lot has changed in the genre since then. Prior to X-Men, few superhero films experienced very much critical or box-office success. And especially thanks to the campiness of the Joel Schumacher Batman films, few thought that anyone would take superhero movies very seriously. And only the die-hard fans questioned 20^th Century Fox’s decision to tone-down some of the comic elements in X-Men, most notably forgoing colorful spandex suits in favor of black-leather costumes – a fact that Cyclops even jokes about just before the movie’s climax.

But I think X-Men’s attempt to appeal to a more mainstream audience ultimately succeeded and paved the way for a slew of superhero movies in the years to follow. And as the genre grew, it seems that the general public’s acceptance of all aspects of superheroes did as well. We now have two Spider-Man franchises where his blue and red suit is no issue at all. And the masses flocked to see The Avengers without batting an eye at watching a massive battle against an alien army. If only we hadn’t rolled our eyes to such things back in 2000!

But now that it’s acceptable for superheroes to exist on screen just as they do in the comics, isn’t it time that we saw Wolverine in his iconic yellow and blue (or brown and tan) costume? Oh wait – maybe that does pop up in X-Men: Day of Future Past! Don’t spoil it for me!

Until next time,

-Steve

Denver Comic Con

Next weekend June 13-15 marks Denver's Comic Con extravaganza. The tickets are nearly sold out, and last year the lines were reported to be hours long with some fans being turned away due to overcrowding.  Last year the attendance doubled with over 60,000 fans! (From denvercomiccon.com). My advice is get your ticket now , if you haven't already, and be prepared for the lines. Well worth the wait, of course!

The list of special guest appearances is stellar. A couple of my favorites coming to Denver this year are Lou Ferrigno (Hulk), Chandler Riggs (Carl from Walking Dead), and Michael Rooker (Merle from Walking Dead). Some of the planned events include Sci-Fi speed dating, you know in case you want to find the love of your life! Of course, the Hall of Games/ Toy maker's Guild will be featuring their showcase. The Vector Lounge will have all of your favorite classic video games and pinball machines. Let us know, will you be heading to the Denver Comic Con, or another one?

The Beginning of My Love For Comics

If you’ve spent much time at all on 3twins.net then you know that our love of comics is evident in much of the work that we do. I personally grew up loving comic book characters, especially Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man, but my experience with them was entirely through movies and cartoons. Even though I loved the stories, I never actually read the comics.

At least that was the case up until the summer of 1997. I was shopping with my brother and sisters, happened to see a four-pack of Spider-Man comics, and bought them on a whim. This was my very first comic book purchase! That four pack was known as the Revelations series, which was the conclusion to the Spider-Man Clone Saga – a story-arc that dominated the franchise from 1994-1996.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that the Clone Saga is considered one of the lowest points in the history of the Spider-Man franchise. It was full of messy storytelling and plot-lines that angered hard-core fans and confused new readers by phasing out Peter Parker and establishing Ben Reilly as the new Spider-Man. Writer Bud Budiansky was tasked with bringing Peter Parker back and ending the saga, but it was no easy task because of all of the loose ends and other problems that had been created. Budiansky ended up soliciting ideas from the entire Marvel staff and Revelations was the final product of his efforts. The final comic in the series saw the death of Ben Reilly and end of the clone saga, the first appearance of Norman Osborne and the Green Goblin in 20 years, the disappearance of Peter Parker and Mary Jane’s baby, and Parker reestablished as Spider-Man.

I spent the rest of the weekend completely lost in those four issues. My love of Spider-man was officially solidified and my love of comics was born. I never did become a comic book collector, but to this day I still enjoy reading them and getting swept up in the images. And if you peruse some of the drawings I’ve done for 3Twins, especially in Hatman & Indigo, you might even see how the Revelations story-arc influenced my own artwork.

Until next time,

~Steve

SUPERHEROES

Who doesn't love them?  I think that even if you weren't into super heroes before,  you are now! The Marvel universe has grown in the movie industry the last few years and these movies have reintroduced these amazing characters to generations young and old! Those that have read the comic books have a deeper connection (like Jason), those that have seen the movies (like me) enjoy the new adventure and the way the others light up as they pop off the page. I love the fact that my whole family enjoys it all!

~Michelle Kuder

Changes and Updates to 3twins.net

As some of you may have noticed, we are making changes to 3twins.net. The most noticeable change is the first page you see is now Hatman & Indigo comics. This allows for easy access to all the exciting adventures of Hatman and Indigo. Our familiar home page is still located under the Home link at the top of every page.

The most recent change to the website is our new and improved Midieville cartoon menu. Although the old one was fun and interactive, it was difficult to navigate. This improved menu is organized in easy to follow volumes of the current 30 Midieville episodes. We are working on streamlining all our menus to have the same feel, so look for similar changes to Hatman & Indigo comics menu in the coming months.

Please post your comments on our changes, we always strive to make our fans happy!

Thanks for the feedback,

Andy

Incubating something

I've found that in my writing there are times where I end up incubating an idea, or series of ideas and when its ready to be written, it flows freely. It's an odd thing, but I've learned how to recognize this and if something isn't ready and I force it, it isn't as good. Maybe this all sounds weird and "artsy fartsy" to you all, but that's just how I work.

The reason I'm writing this is because today, I have that feeling that something is ready to hatch. I'm not sure what, though. Usually, I have a project that needs to be written, but at this point, there are several Hatman scripts that have been outlined as well as the massive Lectrajack movie script, so what it is that I feel is about to come pouring out of me, I am unsure. It could be something completely new.

It's like I woke up and discovered an egg in my office and I don't know what is inside, but its wiggling and looks like its ready to be born.

I'll let you know what it turns out to be, even if it turns out to be nothing. :)

-Jason

Comics and Movies

In the next soon-to-be-released edition of KudeeCast, Jason makes a comment about how comic book movies are often frustrating because of the many ways they deviate from the original comics. I couldn't agree more.

Since its release in 2005, I have hesitated to watch the Fantastic Four film, partially because of this reason. The film's main villain is, of course, Victor von Doom, AKA: Dr. Doom - one of the most feared and powerful villains in the Marvel Universe. But rather than staying true to Doom's origin as a poor child from Latveria who grows in both knowledge, technology and mystical power to become the villain we all know today, the film depicts Doom essentially as an American billionaire (if it wasn't for the fact they say he's from Latveria, his accent and demeanor certainly wouldn't give it away) who comes to power in the same cosmic accident that creates the Fantastic Four.

Twists in the plot such as this always seem to anger the true comic fans. Whether it's something great like distorting Dr. Doom's origin, making Mary Jane Watson Peter Parker's High School crush or killing off Venom after 15 minutes of screen time, or whether it's something minor like making Tony Stark's butler Jarvis a computer or giving Wolverine a leather jumpsuit instead of his classic yellow spandex (okay, maybe those aren't minor).

While in some cases, I have to admit, the changes are not a big deal, and in fact, are (I hesitate to say) necessary for translating the story from the printed page to the silver screen, most of the time I'm still left asking, "WHY DID YOU DO THAT?" I mean, would it really be so bad to try and get the story right?

And I've barely even mentioned what is perhaps the biggest tragedy of them all - killing off the villain at the end of the film. This is fortunately one area where The Fantastic Four film didn't go wrong, but yet so many comic films do. One of the greatest joys of the comic book world is seeing the hero and the villain locked in a seemingly never ending battle. While at the end of the day we always want to see Peter Parker trump the Green Goblin, or Wolverine get the better of Sabertooth, or Batman send The Joker to Arkham Asylum for the umpteenth time - we DON'T want to see these bad guys put away forever. You have to admit, when Gobby comes back from the dead, you might be saying, "Oh no Peter, watch out," but there's at the very least a little piece inside that's excited because it means you get to see the conflict all over again.

In the movies, though, dead means dead, at least most of the time, so when we see the hero put the villain six feet under, we know they're not comming back, and we know that we're missing out on seeing another great battle between the two in a future film.

I write all this knowing it isn't going to change anything - and that as comic book movies that distort the comics continue to come out, I will still keep paying $8 a pop to see them on the big screen. But at the same time, I keep in the back of my mind the resolution that should Hatman & Indigo, or any other 3Twins story, ever make it big enough to get the green light for a film version, I will NOT let them turn Hatman's head into a Fedora, or change the animal parts of Indigo, and I will certainly not let them kill off Glomo, or The Evil Zap Man, or Super Cold Frozen Man, or any other villain that we didn't kill off in the comics!

Well, that's all, thanks for letting me rant.

-Steve

P.S. For more of Jason's take on this, be sure to watch the next installment of KudeeCast when it airs soon on 3Twins.net

Blank Label Comics

In ye olde tymes, artists would often gather together in guilds and collectives for mutial support and to encourage their edevors. On the belief that working together is better than going it alone a group of webcomics artists got together and formed 'Blank Label Comics'- a online publisher of their artists titles.

Take a trip over there and you'll find a very disparate group of comics. My three personal favorites are Real Life Comics by Greg Dean- a semi-autobiographical 'slice of geek life', Wapsi Square- a comic that's evolved into a paranormal quest to prevent the end of the world, and ShortPacked- a dysfunctional team of retail co-workers in a toy store. You'll also find Shclock Mercenary and Melonpool- two sci-fi comics, and Ugly Hill- a 'traditional' 3 panel funny-papers offering. These are all SFW, probably PG-12 at worst

Take a stroll over there and take a gander. Next time, we'll look at the 800-pound gorilla of webcomic publishers- Keenspot!

Excelsior!
Mutz

Greetings!

Continuing our meanderings through the web comics cosmos, we come upon a unique little gem called 'Kevin and Kell': www.kevinandkell.com

Take a typical family- Dad (Kevin), Mom (Kell), a stepson, an adopted daughter, and a new baby. Now, make dad a 6 foot tall rabbit, mom and son a wolf, the daughter a hedgehog, and the baby a carnivorous rabbit/wolf hybrid and you get the idea where this is going. Beyond the well-sculpted alternate universe of anthropomorphic animals the family inhabits you get a traditional newspaper style feel and some really sharp writing. At times it seems a little too 'furry' to me, but if you stick with it I promise it will grow on you.

Rated PG for mostly harmless humor. K&K has been around for a long time, so they're plenty of strips to keep you reading for a long time.

Next episode we'll take a look at Fantasy RPG comics, specifically "Looking for Group"

See ya 'round!

Uncle Mutzie

More sneek peeks into Ion Bunny 4

I previously wrote about Ion Bunny 4 and how he will square off against the Mad Hatter once more, but what I failed to mention was that unlike our previous issues of Ion Bunny, which have all been penciled and inked by Steve Surine, this one will be penciled and inked by our new artist, Brittany Bankert. To the side is a concept sketch she did of Ion Bunny and his alter-ego, Ian Bunay. We're excited about this new style for Ion Bunny since it lends itself really well to the "cute, yet not cuddly" nature of the "hare raising" electro-phile.

Stay tuned for periodic updates on all things 3twins...

-Jason

We all have a story

A few days ago I read an article on NPR's website by Glen Weldon titled Question: Who's the Longest Running Fictional Character Ever? (If you don't want me to spoil the answer then read the article before continuing!)

The answer was Superman who has been fighting bad guys with his super strength for 70 years now. The point of the article, it turned out, was to illustrate how Superman is a bad example of an open ended story gone awry. Stories, according to Weldon, are designed to have an end. They are not intended to go on forever or they just have to rewrite their own rules, throw in cheesy gimmicks and end up turning into soap operas - even if the characters can fly and wear spandex.

While I see Weldon's point, I have to say that I don't agree. I have loved to write and tell stories for as long as I can remember, and I think I can safely say that the same applies to Andy and Jason. One aspect of story telling that we have discussed numerous times is how we hate to see a story end. Once we have created a great set of characters and come to the end of a tale, we anxiously await their next series of events.

I even do this when I watch movies or read books. When I really fall in love with the characters in a story and then come to the end, I imagine what life is like for them beyond what I just witnessed. Will they go on to have more adventures? Will the new couple stay together? Is the villain really defeated? And I feel this way every time even though I know that sequels most often disappoint.

I've thought about why this is, and the conclusion I keep coming back to is that each of our lives is a story. Maybe not the kind of story you'd read on the news or turn into a reality TV show, but it's a story nonetheless.

Think of the elements any story needs, they're all a part of our every day lives: good characters who develop over time, a setting, a plot (sometimes many of them), conflict (often more than we really care for), antagonists, protagonists... it's all there. Maybe the only thing that isn't there is a climax and a resolution. Sure, there are major events and turning points in our lives that ultimately get resolved, but unlike a movie or a novel the story doesn't end there.

Now, in some situations I can see Weldon's point. Certain stories are more plot-driven than character-driven and end when the plot comes to a close. Take a fable like The Tortoise and the Hare, for example, no one is really interested in the Hare's back-story, it's the plot that moves things along. And some stories serve to convey a point that is much bigger than book or the film. Take Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird, while it contains great characters, the point is to serve as a commentary on racism in the South.

But what about Superman? Or The Adventures of Hatman and Indigo for that matter? While at times these stories may contain a moral or an over-arching point, the heart of the story will always lie with the characters themselves. We long to see what will happen to them, how things will develop, where their lives will take them. And I believe we do this because of an innate belief that our stories are bigger than the events of our lives.

Yes, as Weldon says, this may tempt the author's of these stories to "jump the shark" in order to keep viewers, and this is a sad reality. But I don't believe it changes the fact that we can relate to stories that don't necessarily have an end. It just means that as writers, we need to work even harder to continue telling new and great stories without losing the essence of the characters that made them great in the first place.

-Steve

Story Creations

A lot of thought goes into writing a story for 3twins.net. Whether it’s an issue of Hatman & Indigo or an episode of one of our cartoons, it all has to start with an idea. Often times, we will come up with the silliest ideas, and try to form a story around that. Sometimes, the end result has little or nothing to do with the initial idea.

Take “Meet the Damsels” for example. We had discussed Blonde having a family, and we thought it would be funny if all the members of her family were named for their hair color. This concept led us to create Brunette, and Bruno as a funny paring, as well as the other family members.

This was back when we were using classic story concepts as a jumping point for our creativity (like "Freaky Friday" influenced "Heroic and Incredible"). I wanted to loosely parody Sherlock Holmes and write a mystery where Hatman & Indigo finally meet Blonde’s family, and then the dad (Grey) comes up missing. This was going to lead to the discovery of Bald, the black sheep of the family. We dropped the mystery idea and went with a more zany approach, that the family just didn’t like Bald. You can see how the story unfolded in last year’s issues of “Meet the Damsels”, or read more about the concept to story process in Jason’s earlier blog. ~Andy

My first script

As soon as Andy, Jason and I decided to produce Hatman & Indigo on 3Twins.net we started to crank out scripts. Actually, I should say that Andy and Jason started to crank out scripts. For some reason I hesitated to write any because I didn't feel like I had a good feel for the characters. Eventually, though, things began to click.

At the time I was working in a small art gallery and we were never very busy so I had lots of time to sit and think. I was going through some of the Hatman & Indigo scripts that Jason and Andy had already written and was thinking about possible story ideas.

If you watch our first few stories you'll notice that we often played off the idea that Hatman would accidentally wish for something by saying "I wish" as a figure of speech, only to have to beg Leppy to give him his second wish back. With this in mind I wondered what would happen if Hatman were to flippantly say, "I wish I'd never been born?"

And so this became the basis for my first Hatman & Indigo script, issues 15-17, It's NOT Such a Wonderful Life. The plot was obviously a loose parody of the Jimmy Stewart film It's a Wonderful Life - in fact, we parodied the movie's box-cover for the second part of the comic.

In my first draft of the issue, Hatman wished himself out of existence and then the rest of the story followed Indigo's adventure to find a way to get him back. Indigo quickly realized his only chance was to find another leprechaun so he could make a wish and restore his friend. Fortunately at the ideal moment, a wadded up flyer for a leprechaun convention flew by, letting Indigo know where he could find a leprechaun. He kidnapped an elderly leprechaun, forced him to grant him a wish, and soon brought our hero Hatman back safe and sound.

The story was too short, though, so I beefed it up a bit by adding the scenes about Hatman's adventure as a phantom, witnessing what life was like without him ever having been born. This provided a chance to flesh out Leppy's character a bit since he was assigned to keep an eye on Hatman. What I think is interesting about this story is that it was our first, and so far only, Hatman & Indigo story with a purely situational villain.

It also gave us the character Scotty. Originally Scotty was supposed to be an elderly, Irish Leprechaun. But Andy and Jason were doing a read-through of the script and when Andy read these lines, he ended up using a Scottish accent. The voice sounded so hilarious that we decided to make the the character a Scottish Leprechaun. From there we couldn't resist the urge to bring him back as a recurring character.

The story also was the first appearance of the Fairy Queen, Hatman's mom and dad, and one more character that we haven't seen again just yet, but I promise, we will soon!

-Steve

PART 2: Parody Covers

Previously, I briefly wrote about the process of choosing a cover to parody for a specific Hatman issue. I will go into more detail on that now.

Many times we have to really work on what covers would fit best with what stories. Granted, we could just arbitrarily pick something recognizable and go with that. However, I have tried to implement a few rules into our parody covers.

My first rule is that only characters that appear in that story can appear on the cover. For instance if its not a story featuring the Terrible Trio, you won't see Zapman on the cover. Now I say in the "story" meaning that if for instance the cover is for part 3 of a story and Leppy appeared in part 2 but isn't in part 3 its okay to have him on that cover. Because we look at each story as a whole and the parts just help break them up into manageable pieces.

My second rule is that it has to make sense somehow in relation to the source material we are parodying. Take "The Terrible Trio part 2" for example, we wanted to parody "The Avengers issue #4". It was an obvious choice to put Super Cold Frozen Man in the place of Captain America, because he has a shield (which was originally designed to feel some what like an icy version of Cap's shield). And then, because Indigo and Glomo can both fly we put them in the spots for Wasp and Iron Man, Indigo in the Wasp position because he has wings. Then looking at what was left, we decided since Hatman has a cape, he should be where Thor is and why not have him swinging a hammer as well. Finally, Zapman was put in the place of Giant Man.

My third rule is that any text that appears on the source material should be closely parodied if at all possible. Again, if we look at the above covers, you'll see "Captain America Lives Again!" and in the story previous to this, we had led our audience to believe that Hatman & Indigo had killed Super Cold Frozen Man, so we put "Super Cold Frozen Man Lives Again!" Also, a good reason this cover worked so well with this particular story was that the part 3 was the very first Ion Bunny so putting Ion Bunny in the box where Sub-Mariner is on the original was also a no brainer. Then we looked at the text for "Avengers" and decided to make ours say "Adventures" and we squeezed our Hatman & Indigo logo in after that.

I still have a lot to say about parody covers, so we'll continue this another time.

-Jason

Parody Covers

Many of our comics have parody covers (to understand what this is, just compare the images to the left and right). In fact, we actually have more parody covers than original covers. The pattern usually is that issue one of a multi-issue story is an original cover and the subsequent issues have parody covers. We have broken this pattern a couple of times, (technically only once on the one part Christmas Carol issue, but the following issues "Omniscient" weren't parody covers, however, the part 2 cover could arguably be a parody of the part 1 cover, and at this point your probably saying "who cares") but we try to have that be the pattern.

Anyhow, a lot of thought is put into the parody covers that we do. I spend a lot of time searching cover databases (coverbrowser is a great one) looking for covers to possibly parody. We are usually working about six months to a year ahead, so I am constantly jumping around the different stories and issues thinking of what would best portray the comic issue at the time. Some comics lend themselves to a specific cover naturally. Like "Back to the Beginning", as I mentioned in a previous post, the part 2 cover is going to be a parody of the "Back To The Future part 1" box cover (refer to that post for the reference image). However, some comics don't so easily lend themselves to a parody cover, so we have to put a little thought into it.

Our first few parody covers were specifically parodying "first" issues. Like Action Comics #1 (shown on the above left), which is the first appearance of Superman, Incredible Hulk #1 (you can guess who that featured) and so on. We still have a few "first" issues in mind for future covers, but we have expanded to include other interesting covers as well as ones you might recognize right off the bat and some that may be a little more obscure.

I will continue more on this topic later.

-Jason