by Ryan McLelland
Image Comics Meltdown was one of the best books of the year. Period.
Writer David Schwartz and artist Sean Wang introduced us to Cal – a
superhero who has just found out that his powers are killing him.
Months ago I had said about that book, “Not since Kurt Busiek’s Astro City has a comic brought so much impact into the comic book world and Meltdown
never aims to please – it just hits you with raw emotion and an
unyielding realism that will force comic book readers to look up en
masse. The unyielding power of Meltdown leaves the reader thirsting for more…a solid 6 star comic in a 5 star world.”
Meltdown was released and it not only lived up to the
expectations, it surpassed them, which is surprising, given its rather
unique story. As I wrote last October:
The story of Cal, short for Caliente (the Spanish word for hot and a
nod to Cal’s fire superpowers), is told in two parts. In the present
Cal has been labeled as a madman as, with his death sentence already
handed to him, he decides to go after all the supervillians he’s fought
and try to take them down for good. No more handing over to the police,
no more prisoners, he’s a man on a mission and his latest is his arch
nemesis Maelstrom. However, being his arch nemesis, Maelstrom is no
easy push over and their fight, starting in his Maelstrom’s lush
office, lands on the street where pedestrians can only watch as the two
superpowered humans unleash havoc on themselves in what should be the
final battle if not for both of them, at least for one.
Since the series was released I’ve read the duo prestige-format issues
perhaps a dozen times and couldn’t wait until the trade was released.
The wait is over. The Meltdown TPB hits comic book stores
on July 5th – hitting bookstores, Amazon, and other online retailers in
August. Guess it’s good to buy your books at the comic store, huh?
I sat down once again with the brilliant David Schwartz to find out what’s new and exciting in the Meltdown TPB.
“We wanted to give the direct market a special exclusive advance window
as a way of thanking them for all the support they’ve shown to Meltdown,”
Schwartz said. “After all, comic shops are the lifeblood of our
industry, and we wanted to do our (admittedly small) part to pitch in
and show our appreciation.”
I asked David to look back on Meltdown and ponder if the
series held up from his original vision to what we actually got on
shelves. “While I’m never 100% satisfied with my work, Sean (Wang) and
I really labored over page, every detail, and I’m really incredibly
pleased with how it all turned out,” replied Schwartz. “Yes, Meltdown
has definitely changed tremendously over the course of it’s gestation,
in both large and small ways, but I think those changes were all for
the better.”
He continued, “In fact, one of the things I’m most excited about in the
TPB is that we’ve got a pretty extensive Creators Commentary section in
the book, where we walk through the series, discussing the choices that
went into each page, and offering up deleted scenes, alternate endings,
and more surprises along the way. So, readers will be able to see some
of the other courses we considered along the way, and to judge for
themselves whether we made the right creative choices.”
I knew that I went nuts for the series as did many critics so I asked Schwartz his thoughts on the reaction to the book.
“I’ve been really blown away by the reaction to the series,” he
answered. “We sent out review copies very early on; literally months
before the first issue hit the stands. It was a risky gamble, because
if the early reviews were negative it would’ve killed our all-important
first-week sales. So, I was incredibly relieved when the reviews were
all so overwhelmingly positive. I had to double-check to make sure that
they were actually talking about our Meltdown and not just doing a retrospective on Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown.”
“But, while the reviews have certainly been wonderful, what’s really
thrilled me the most are the e-mails we’ve gotten from readers and the
reader reactions we’ve gotten at signings. I’ve really been touched by
the fans explaining how much Meltdown
has mattered to them, how much it’s affected them, and how it’s
inspired them to make positive changes in their lives. Of course, it
puts a ton of pressure on my next project, but that’s a great kind of
pressure to have!”
While the Meltdown series was the ending point for the main character I asked Schwartz if there would be a return to the Meltdown
world to see the earlier adventures of Cal. “We’ve gotten a LOT of
requests from readers for a return… and it’s something I’m seriously
considering,” Schwartz said. “I’m not sure yet whether it would focus
on Cal’s early days, or on some of the other characters we’ve
introduced, but it’s definitely something I’d be interested in
exploring.
Luckily there are plenty of new additions in the TPB to whet everyone’s
appetite. I asked Schwartz what we could expect and he replied, “We
really wanted to make this TPB a spectacular package, the comic book
equivalent of a movie’s platinum edition DVD release. Sean and I are
both big fans of “behind the scenes” bonus materials, and we made a
very conscious decision to give as thorough a look behind the scenes as
we possibly could.”
“So, we’ve got lots of great behind the scenes stuff, like pages ripped
from Sean’s sketchbook, showing the initial series design work. A very
cool, rare look at Chris Bachalo’s process, with his thumbnail, pencils
and inks for our issue 1 cover. (We have) a look behind the scenes of
Greg Horn’s process as well, as we get to see one of his original
penciled cover concepts for the series
“(There’s) the afore-mentioned Creators Commentary section, which is
similar to a DVD commentary track. I love those on DVDs, but I don’t
recall ever seeing anything similar in the comics world, so we’re
pretty interested to see what readers think. And, we’ve got a pretty
widely varied array of cool pin-ups from very talented folks like Josh
Howard (Dead @ 17), Micah Gunnell (Soulfire), Dan Hipp (The Amazing Joy Buzzards), Mark Haven Britt (Full Color), Robbi Rodriguez (Hero Camp), and Joelle Jones (12 Reasons Why I Love Here).
They’re all indie comics artists, and I’m very proud that we’re able to
include so many of our fellow indie comic creators in the TPB.”
There’s also an introduction by some guy named Robert Kirkman. “As far
as Kirkman goes, he’s one of my favorite writers out there. Invincible
is a tremendous amount of fun, and The Walking Dead is positively chilling. So, we were completely geeked to hear that he loved Meltdown
and was interested in writing our foreword for the book. He wrote a
great, and very funny, intro to the book, offering us many more
compliments than we probably deserved.”
If you missed Meltdown the first time now is the best chance to pick up the best series of 2006-2007 when the Meltdown TPB hits comic stores this week.
Click here for a 20 page preview from the first issue of Meltdown.
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Last week, former DC editor and now DC exclusive writer Peter Tomasi kicked off his run on Nightwing. We spoke with the writer back in September when he was named as the new lead of the creative team, and he gave us a full rundown on how he sees Nightwing and how the character fits in with the Bat-Family and the larger DC Universe…so – now that his first issue is out?We caught up again to talk about the specific issue – “Freefall” Part 1 – and get some insight on why he did what he did with the character and the issue.
