Post by CompletelyObsessed on Jan 28, 2006 16:40:23 GMT -5
The Globe and Mail
28 January 2006
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Tony Soprano!
Barely a year after opening shop, Toronto's Speakeasy Comics has been approached by HBO to serialize TV's No. 1 Mafia clan, and has Johnny Depp knocking at its door
BARRETT HOOPER
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
The appropriately named Al Swearengen is perhaps the most foul-mouthed character in TV history. Deadwood's resident saloonkeeper, whoremonger and all-round bad cuss is notorious for his colourful use of language.
Now, thanks to an upstart Toronto publishing company, Swearengen's every $#&! and #@$! will fill the word bubbles of a new comic book based on the popular HBO series.
Speakeasy Comics has been approached by the cable network to bring not only the denizens of Deadwood to comics, but also America's favourite crime family, the Sopranos, and the centurions, senators and slave girls from the TV epic, Rome. “These aren't going to be adaptations of what's already happened on the shows,” says Adam Fortier, founder and CEO of Speakeasy. “It'll be all new stories, with those characters.”
Comic books based on TV shows are not new. Star Trek comics have been around since Kirk and Spock were still on their original five-year mission, and recent efforts include CSI and 24. But Speakeasy's HBO-inspired line is different: It will actually involve the creative talent behind the hit shows. “HBO wants their writers to help write the comic books,” says Fortier. “The language and the characters in something like Deadwood or The Sopranos is so important and so particular to those worlds that it's really the only way to do them justice.”
Fortier is kicking back in front of the TV watching The Family Guy at Speakeasy's downtown studio. Editor-in-chief and sometime writer Chris Stone is checking e-mail on a nearby laptop, the exposed-brick wall behind him covered in posters of the company's comics, titles like The Grimoire, Spellgame and Beowulf. Somewhere in the back of the shop, behind a wall of boxes filled with comics, is editor Ivan Neveau.
Barely a year old, Speakeasy is a rising star in the comics field, though Fortier says “we'll never compete on the same level as Marvel or DC,” which share 70 per cent of the market. While the top titles — featuring Batman, Spider-Man and the X-Men — regularly sell 100,000 copies a month, Fortier is satisfied with even a tenth of that number for one of his books. Even so, Speakeasy has gone from printing three titles a month to 15 (compared to 25 for each of Marvel and DC).
“Speakeasy is a niche publisher that has quickly become one of our more popular publishers,” says Christopher Butcher, manager of hip Toronto comics shop The Beguiling, which devotes an entire section to Speakeasy. “They have shown solid sales all along, Spellgame in particular, and their Rocketo was huge with the illustration crowd, and is one of our best-selling comics.”
Indeed, Rocketo, about an explorer-adventurer on a postcataclysmic Earth some 2000 years in the future, is printed sideways in a “widescreen” format that emphasizes the connection between comic book and cinematic storytelling. Perhaps not surprising, given Hollywood's interest in the company.
In the past few months, Fortier has spent as much time being courted by Hollywood powerbrokers as he has deciding which of his comics to reprint. “Chris and I went to L.A. and we had about 80 meetings a day. . . . We talked with everybody, from the people at Warner Bros. and [Steven Spielberg's] Amblin Entertainment to Gene Simmons [of Kiss fame]. It was painful,” he says, only half-joking.
But the schmoozing paid off. On top of the HBO comics that Speakeasy will be making, Fortier signed a deal in November with L.A.-based Ardustry Entertainment to publish a trio of new comics, starting in May, that will then be made into feature films. Ardustry's Barry Levine, who was involved with Dark Horse Comics (Alien v. Predator, Hellboy, Sin City) and has also worked on films ranging from Die Hard 3 to Driving Miss Daisy, will oversee the venture.
Speakeasy has already cozied up to actors Rosario Dawson and Johnny Depp, director John Woo, and the guy who made Catwoman (although Fortier asks that you not judge the director based on that bit of star-driven, studio-controlled kitty litter). The plan calls for Speakeasy to publish four new comics, starting in May, that will then be made into feature films.
Dawson played a fighter in fishnet stockings in the comic-book adaptation, Sin City, which also starred Bruce Willis and Benicio del Toro. Now, she's co-creating a comic book called Occult Crimes Taskforce (which will likely then be swiftly optioned for film/ television/ video games). The comic-book miniseries delves into the supernatural, and follows detective Sophia Ortiz (Dawson's four-colour counterpart) on her quest to save New York from an unholy threat, and solve the mystery of her father's murder. Occult Crimes Taskforce will publish in May, along with Caliber, a reimagining of the Arthurian legend as a western, with King Arthur as the town sheriff, Lancelot as a gunslinger and Guinevere as a saloonkeeper. It's based on an idea brought to Speakeasy by Depp and his producing partner. Depp will produce and possibly star in the movie version; Woo, who directed Face/Off and Mission: Impossible 2, will direct. “We got lucky and attached some good people to it,” says Fortier. “John Woo was supposed to make another western, but the funding fell through so he jumped on board pretty quick.”
In June, Speakeasy will release Caeadas, about archeologists who uncover an ancient gladiator training pit in Rome, and accidentally unleash its immortal warriors. “It's like Aliens underground,” says Fortier. The project was conceived by Patrick Tatopoulos — the special-effects guru on such films as Independence Day, Underworld and I, Robot — who intends to make it his feature-film directorial debut.
Then there's Pitof, the one-named director whose first Hollywood film was the abysmal comic-book adaptation of Catwoman starring Halle Berry. “He's really concerned about what his next project is going to be because if he does something that doesn't succeed, he's finished,” says Fortier. As a result, Pitof is working closely with Speakeasy to develop a comic book about a futuristic Bonnie and Clyde which the director will use as a blueprint for his next movie. “This allows Pitof to direct the comic book. It won't cost $80-million — it'll cost 40 grand. There's no superstar who says, ‘This is how it's going to be,' ” notes Fortier. “This is an opportunity to do things exactly how he envisions them.”
Along with giving directors the unique chance to “direct” comic books, such deals, says Fortier, also allow them to come away with a fully realized story that can be easier to shop around Hollywood than just a screenplay. “The comic book exists in its final form and is a commodity in and of itself,” he notes.
And the idea is gaining in popularity. Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon announced recently that he will be writing the first four issues of a new comic-book series set in the Buffyverse, which follows on the heels of a prequel comic book he wrote to last summer's Serenity movie.
All of this talk of multimillion-dollar movie deals is a long way from Fortier's days as a volunteer stockboy at his local comics shop. But he didn't grow up wanting to make comics. “I have no artistic abilities whatsoever,” he says sheepishly. He studied math at the University Of Toronto, and eventually landed in 3-D animation.
Dreaming of making the “most awesome movie ever” — based on the 80s cartoon, Transformers, about robots that change into cars and airplanes, and battle other robots — Fortier contacted toy-maker Hasbro about the rights in 2001. While there was already a live-action Transformers movie in the works, Fortier convinced Hasbro to license the characters for a comic book, which he got Toronto's Dreamwave Comics to publish.
The comic struck a nostalgic nerve among Transformers fans, briefly ending Marvel's and DC's stranglehold on the top of the sales charts. “I handled the business end of things, learned on the fly, and then became a consultant to other comic-book companies on how to run their businesses profitably,” says Fortier.
Then, just over a year ago, Fortier decided to put his money where his mouth was — and soon after, started Speakeasy. “I do like to think of myself as a neophyte writer, or as a conceptualist,” he says. “So I developed this comic-book world and recruited writers and artists to submit ideas for stories set within that world.”
It's a world with a very specific sensibility. “I wouldn't give most of the comics out there to a 10-year-old,” says Fortier. “In the 60s and 70s, heroes were supposed to be better than everyone else and they were.” The 80s saw the humanizing of superheroes, grounding them in an often dark, gritty and unpleasant reality. “That,” says Fortier, “is not what Speakeasy is about.”
The Grimoire, Speakeasy's first title and one of its most successful, set the tone with its Harry Potter-esque tale of a girl with a mother that is an evil sorceress who banished her father to a hellish dimension. Beowulf, an updating of the Old English epic poem, followed, along with Spellgame, about a street magician and con artist who discovers he knows real magic. “They definitely speak to a younger audience than the other stuff on the shelves,” says editor-in-chief Stone.
Fortier is also developing a series based on Warhammer, which is like The Lord of the Rings for gaming fans. And he's talking to Ubisoft about turning some of his titles into video games.
Down the road, he'd like to take a crack at making movies himself.
Not surprisingly, given Fortier's Hollywood connections, the wheels are already in motion. “We're looking to do some lower-budget stuff based on our ideas, and filmed here in Canada,” he says. “We've developed about a half-dozen story ideas, an espionage story, a killer-stripper story called Stripped to the Bone, which we'll first publish as mass-market graphic novels for bookstores, and then use as templates for the movies down the road. And if we make a movie and nobody likes it, we'll just go back to doing what we do best: comic books.”
28 January 2006
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Tony Soprano!
Barely a year after opening shop, Toronto's Speakeasy Comics has been approached by HBO to serialize TV's No. 1 Mafia clan, and has Johnny Depp knocking at its door
BARRETT HOOPER
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
The appropriately named Al Swearengen is perhaps the most foul-mouthed character in TV history. Deadwood's resident saloonkeeper, whoremonger and all-round bad cuss is notorious for his colourful use of language.
Now, thanks to an upstart Toronto publishing company, Swearengen's every $#&! and #@$! will fill the word bubbles of a new comic book based on the popular HBO series.
Speakeasy Comics has been approached by the cable network to bring not only the denizens of Deadwood to comics, but also America's favourite crime family, the Sopranos, and the centurions, senators and slave girls from the TV epic, Rome. “These aren't going to be adaptations of what's already happened on the shows,” says Adam Fortier, founder and CEO of Speakeasy. “It'll be all new stories, with those characters.”
Comic books based on TV shows are not new. Star Trek comics have been around since Kirk and Spock were still on their original five-year mission, and recent efforts include CSI and 24. But Speakeasy's HBO-inspired line is different: It will actually involve the creative talent behind the hit shows. “HBO wants their writers to help write the comic books,” says Fortier. “The language and the characters in something like Deadwood or The Sopranos is so important and so particular to those worlds that it's really the only way to do them justice.”
Fortier is kicking back in front of the TV watching The Family Guy at Speakeasy's downtown studio. Editor-in-chief and sometime writer Chris Stone is checking e-mail on a nearby laptop, the exposed-brick wall behind him covered in posters of the company's comics, titles like The Grimoire, Spellgame and Beowulf. Somewhere in the back of the shop, behind a wall of boxes filled with comics, is editor Ivan Neveau.
Barely a year old, Speakeasy is a rising star in the comics field, though Fortier says “we'll never compete on the same level as Marvel or DC,” which share 70 per cent of the market. While the top titles — featuring Batman, Spider-Man and the X-Men — regularly sell 100,000 copies a month, Fortier is satisfied with even a tenth of that number for one of his books. Even so, Speakeasy has gone from printing three titles a month to 15 (compared to 25 for each of Marvel and DC).
“Speakeasy is a niche publisher that has quickly become one of our more popular publishers,” says Christopher Butcher, manager of hip Toronto comics shop The Beguiling, which devotes an entire section to Speakeasy. “They have shown solid sales all along, Spellgame in particular, and their Rocketo was huge with the illustration crowd, and is one of our best-selling comics.”
Indeed, Rocketo, about an explorer-adventurer on a postcataclysmic Earth some 2000 years in the future, is printed sideways in a “widescreen” format that emphasizes the connection between comic book and cinematic storytelling. Perhaps not surprising, given Hollywood's interest in the company.
In the past few months, Fortier has spent as much time being courted by Hollywood powerbrokers as he has deciding which of his comics to reprint. “Chris and I went to L.A. and we had about 80 meetings a day. . . . We talked with everybody, from the people at Warner Bros. and [Steven Spielberg's] Amblin Entertainment to Gene Simmons [of Kiss fame]. It was painful,” he says, only half-joking.
But the schmoozing paid off. On top of the HBO comics that Speakeasy will be making, Fortier signed a deal in November with L.A.-based Ardustry Entertainment to publish a trio of new comics, starting in May, that will then be made into feature films. Ardustry's Barry Levine, who was involved with Dark Horse Comics (Alien v. Predator, Hellboy, Sin City) and has also worked on films ranging from Die Hard 3 to Driving Miss Daisy, will oversee the venture.
Speakeasy has already cozied up to actors Rosario Dawson and Johnny Depp, director John Woo, and the guy who made Catwoman (although Fortier asks that you not judge the director based on that bit of star-driven, studio-controlled kitty litter). The plan calls for Speakeasy to publish four new comics, starting in May, that will then be made into feature films.
Dawson played a fighter in fishnet stockings in the comic-book adaptation, Sin City, which also starred Bruce Willis and Benicio del Toro. Now, she's co-creating a comic book called Occult Crimes Taskforce (which will likely then be swiftly optioned for film/ television/ video games). The comic-book miniseries delves into the supernatural, and follows detective Sophia Ortiz (Dawson's four-colour counterpart) on her quest to save New York from an unholy threat, and solve the mystery of her father's murder. Occult Crimes Taskforce will publish in May, along with Caliber, a reimagining of the Arthurian legend as a western, with King Arthur as the town sheriff, Lancelot as a gunslinger and Guinevere as a saloonkeeper. It's based on an idea brought to Speakeasy by Depp and his producing partner. Depp will produce and possibly star in the movie version; Woo, who directed Face/Off and Mission: Impossible 2, will direct. “We got lucky and attached some good people to it,” says Fortier. “John Woo was supposed to make another western, but the funding fell through so he jumped on board pretty quick.”
In June, Speakeasy will release Caeadas, about archeologists who uncover an ancient gladiator training pit in Rome, and accidentally unleash its immortal warriors. “It's like Aliens underground,” says Fortier. The project was conceived by Patrick Tatopoulos — the special-effects guru on such films as Independence Day, Underworld and I, Robot — who intends to make it his feature-film directorial debut.
Then there's Pitof, the one-named director whose first Hollywood film was the abysmal comic-book adaptation of Catwoman starring Halle Berry. “He's really concerned about what his next project is going to be because if he does something that doesn't succeed, he's finished,” says Fortier. As a result, Pitof is working closely with Speakeasy to develop a comic book about a futuristic Bonnie and Clyde which the director will use as a blueprint for his next movie. “This allows Pitof to direct the comic book. It won't cost $80-million — it'll cost 40 grand. There's no superstar who says, ‘This is how it's going to be,' ” notes Fortier. “This is an opportunity to do things exactly how he envisions them.”
Along with giving directors the unique chance to “direct” comic books, such deals, says Fortier, also allow them to come away with a fully realized story that can be easier to shop around Hollywood than just a screenplay. “The comic book exists in its final form and is a commodity in and of itself,” he notes.
And the idea is gaining in popularity. Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon announced recently that he will be writing the first four issues of a new comic-book series set in the Buffyverse, which follows on the heels of a prequel comic book he wrote to last summer's Serenity movie.
All of this talk of multimillion-dollar movie deals is a long way from Fortier's days as a volunteer stockboy at his local comics shop. But he didn't grow up wanting to make comics. “I have no artistic abilities whatsoever,” he says sheepishly. He studied math at the University Of Toronto, and eventually landed in 3-D animation.
Dreaming of making the “most awesome movie ever” — based on the 80s cartoon, Transformers, about robots that change into cars and airplanes, and battle other robots — Fortier contacted toy-maker Hasbro about the rights in 2001. While there was already a live-action Transformers movie in the works, Fortier convinced Hasbro to license the characters for a comic book, which he got Toronto's Dreamwave Comics to publish.
The comic struck a nostalgic nerve among Transformers fans, briefly ending Marvel's and DC's stranglehold on the top of the sales charts. “I handled the business end of things, learned on the fly, and then became a consultant to other comic-book companies on how to run their businesses profitably,” says Fortier.
Then, just over a year ago, Fortier decided to put his money where his mouth was — and soon after, started Speakeasy. “I do like to think of myself as a neophyte writer, or as a conceptualist,” he says. “So I developed this comic-book world and recruited writers and artists to submit ideas for stories set within that world.”
It's a world with a very specific sensibility. “I wouldn't give most of the comics out there to a 10-year-old,” says Fortier. “In the 60s and 70s, heroes were supposed to be better than everyone else and they were.” The 80s saw the humanizing of superheroes, grounding them in an often dark, gritty and unpleasant reality. “That,” says Fortier, “is not what Speakeasy is about.”
The Grimoire, Speakeasy's first title and one of its most successful, set the tone with its Harry Potter-esque tale of a girl with a mother that is an evil sorceress who banished her father to a hellish dimension. Beowulf, an updating of the Old English epic poem, followed, along with Spellgame, about a street magician and con artist who discovers he knows real magic. “They definitely speak to a younger audience than the other stuff on the shelves,” says editor-in-chief Stone.
Fortier is also developing a series based on Warhammer, which is like The Lord of the Rings for gaming fans. And he's talking to Ubisoft about turning some of his titles into video games.
Down the road, he'd like to take a crack at making movies himself.
Not surprisingly, given Fortier's Hollywood connections, the wheels are already in motion. “We're looking to do some lower-budget stuff based on our ideas, and filmed here in Canada,” he says. “We've developed about a half-dozen story ideas, an espionage story, a killer-stripper story called Stripped to the Bone, which we'll first publish as mass-market graphic novels for bookstores, and then use as templates for the movies down the road. And if we make a movie and nobody likes it, we'll just go back to doing what we do best: comic books.”