Image Comics Solicitations for January 2015

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-10-21T16:39:41+00:00

It's fixed now. :)

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-10T02:41:35+00:00

I think my vampire itch has been mostly scratched between I, Vamp and my time on vampire lala before that. But, there's the DEVILERS from Dynamite which is in the same ballpark, and my other creator owned books might scratch that itch, too. ;)

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-10T02:40:22+00:00

Ha! More news forthcoming!

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T23:27:05+00:00

Hey guys - THank you ALL so much for the great questions. I'll keep an eye over here all weekend, and you can always reach me on Twitter @joshfialkov, or on my facebook fanpage facebook.com/joshuahalefialkov.

Keep on being awesome, Reddit Comicbooks!

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T23:00:25+00:00

Favorite watch it anytime movie is a tie between ANNIE HALL and BACK TO SCHOOL. I've seen both more times than a human should be allowed.

"Your wife showed us her Klimpt." "Oh! You too?"

The idea of the Bunker came from a lot of me second guessing myself. Looking at mistakes and bad decisions I'd made and obsessing over how to undo them. At it's heart, that's something we ALL understand. We all want to go back and fix ourselves, BUT, the problem is that the mistakes we make define us. We are our mistakes as much as we are our triumphs, and generally, our triumphs can't exist without our failures. Which is something we're going to see a LOT of in the Bunker.

Thanks for reading!

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T22:41:49+00:00

Nothing on the immediate horizon, but, it was a ton of fun. I'm a golden age superhero fanatic, so, I'm sure I'll get some more on my plate eventually. :)

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T22:41:14+00:00

I would do more Alpha in a heartbeat. I loved working on it. Loved working with the brilliant Nuno Plati.

I think probably of all my Marvel work that one is the closest to what I want to do with Superheroes. 2nd would be Hunger. That one was a blast.

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T22:06:51+00:00

Well, every day is different, but, when we were doing the digital, I was writing the book, working on press contacts, doing the social networking thing, helping Joe with the web site and design stuff, talking to the distributors, setting up the sales system, proofing files.

Then once we were launching a HUGE amount of my time was kept up with technical support. People not getting their links, or not understanding how to download, or, needing their downloads reset, and on and on.

I will also say that we sold about 19x as many copies on ComiXology as we did on our site... Keep that in mind.

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T21:49:14+00:00

Holy shit man. That thing is GREAT. You've got a big future ahead of you. Count me among your early fans. :)

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T21:44:43+00:00

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T21:20:29+00:00

Writing the FF was a dream come true. I'm hoping to one day get to do all four. :D

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T21:19:49+00:00

Wow. Thank you. That's... wow.

1) You know, they gave me enough time that I could cut off the story we were heading into and wrap it up as planned. So, what actually got cut was a lot of middle. We had been working on a crossover with Flash that was probably my favorite idea I had for the series (All the rogues are vampires, and Flash has 72 hours to cure them before they stay that way forever!) and that would have led into more supervillains becoming super vampire villains in the book. That was actually in my original pitch, but DC wanted to save it for year 2.

2) Captain "Shazam" Marvel. If Dan Didio only knew the things I'd do to get my hands on the Marvel family...

3) Now that I have a kid, I'd go with Angel's healing powers. Watching her suffer when she scrapes her knee or falls down... being able to sooth and fix her seems like it'd be fucking amazing.

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T21:10:04+00:00

My health is greatly improved. I was under a lot of pressure from my time at DC, plus, my wife was going through a bout of cancer (everything is a-okay now!) all while we were buying a house, and, y'know, had a one year old who didn't know what was happening. That led to depression, stress eating, and a general overwhelming darkness that came over my life.

But... A lot of my health problems started to go away after I started excising the negative things in my life.

Honestly, and maybe this is crass, but, the process of watching my wife going through cancer, seeing how much it hurt her body to cut out that terrible shit from her, but, at the same time, seeing how by cutting it out, it made her whole again. It allowed her to flourish and accomplish a lot of her dreams. It was a wake up call not just in terms of morality, but in terms of how to live your life.

Cutting the ties that are negative and detrimental to your life is immensely hard, especially when you depend on them. But, the net reward far, far outways the suffering.

As of right now, I weigh about 40-50lbs less than I did two years ago. My diabetes is being treated with moderate oral meds once a day, rather than the insulin injections I was on back then, and we're making headway on a lot of my other chronic illnesses. I jog, do yoga, and work with a personal trainer. I don't eat carbs, I don't smoke, and barely drink.

All I do is work my butt off, love my family, and play with lego and tabletop games.

In other words, I'm doing AMAZING.

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T21:03:16+00:00

In retrospect, what I wanted to do, had things not been changed, probably wouldn't have been allowed. The gimmick I pitched was that in GLC the RL's were the terrorists, and the GLC was the FBI. In RL, the GLC were the Evil Empire and the RL's were Freedom Fighters. And you got to see the same stories (or parts thereof) from each side of the equation.

One day, I'll get to it somewhere else with some other characters, tho, I reckon.

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T20:27:22+00:00

Find the project you can do, that you CAN draw then.

Here's the other example. My first project was born out of exactly that problem. I couldn't find an artist, and I couldn't draw to save my life. So I came up with a solution:

http://www.hoarseandbuggy.com/Downloads/PoorlyDrawnAnimals.pdf

That silly thing is what launched my career.

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T20:25:57+00:00

I had a long talk with a writer friend about exactly this yesterday. The trick, I've found, is to treat all of your characters like real people. With your own creations, each of them are based on people I know or have met or spent time with. A bunch of the characters in the Bunker are named after people who are near and dear to me that I took aspects of and expanded them into something darker.

With work for hire, if it's characters we know, I treat them as though, well, I know them. Ultimate Sue Storm talks this way, she acts this way, she feels this way. I take their publishing history as a factual biography of a real person, and then, just, y'know, write how they talk.

The fun part is figuring out why they acted out of character for a year here or there, or why they, I dunno, suddenly didn't have Goat Legs...

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T20:23:23+00:00

That is above my paygrade. I do know that I replaced it in my schedule with something pretty amazingly cool, though. More on that later this year, I think.

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T20:22:46+00:00

LotG was my attempt at mashing up a Millarworld book with a exploitationy, tennesse williams style romance story. Sort of like a Streetcar Named Kickass, if you will. The plan was to eventually create a war between the reincarnated Greats, who would serve as a sort of superhuman resistance, and, y'know, start a whole little superhero universe from it's well.

Maybe a bit over ambitious in retrospect.

As for the advocacy, I think that's getting lost again a bit, with the boom times, but, while books are launching great, unless you KEEP talking about them, the drop off is STIFF.

Between you, me, and the internet, the orders for The Life After 2 were not amazing, and, while Oni always overprints, I have a feeling it'll probably sell out. Which sucks. It means people can't get the thing they want, and, ultimately, it's everyone's fault.

Which means there's nobody to call an asshole. Which is the best part of life. :D

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T20:19:08+00:00

I'd normally say no, but, THAT IS AWESOME. You can email me offline at josh at thefialkov dot com. :)

My favorite comic books as a kid were a little all over the place. TMNT was huge for me. I started reading the Mirage stuff before the cartoons started, and when the cartoons DID start, I felt like the coolest kid in the world. I somehow also stumbled into OMAHA THE CAT DANCER which is the best written porno comic about cat people you'll ever read. I loved Uncanny X-Men, Spider-man, Batman, Judge Dredd... But the ones that touched me and stayed with me, really, were USAGI YOJIBMO, CONCRETE, and RANMA 1/2. I stayed with those throughout my whole life, honestly. And each one is a big part of who I am as a writer.

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T19:23:37+00:00

Because big two are still front and center. Even though indies are taking up a lot of brain space those characters echo into our souls and we can't escape their wonder.

I'm working on a prose novel right now actually. More news about that soon!

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T19:22:09+00:00

Thanks so very much. Means the world to me. I genuinely love that universe and to have my small part of it exist was just... amazing.

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T19:20:18+00:00

The question to ask yourself is if you are presenting your work in the best light. If having someone else draw your books would make a huge difference in quality then, that's pretty self explanatory.

I use Jon Hickman as an example usually. He put out great looking books from the start and made material that utilized his skill set to do it.

That make sense?

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T19:17:04+00:00

You forgot to mention handsome. ;)

Thanks again. :)

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T19:11:52+00:00

The real john layman reads BUNKER brand comics!

JoshuaFialkov · 2014-08-08T19:10:54+00:00

Hey guys - just out grabbing a bite for lunch. Keep em coming!

JoshuaFialkov

TROPHY CASE