Reviews
In association with www.brokenfrontier.com

Talking to My Boy, Olivier Schrauwen
Column by Bart Croonenborghs, 2007.

Every two years in Belgium, the largest Belgian comics festival takes place in the tiny city of Turnhout. Broken Frontier was there and spoke to Olivier Schrauwen, famed creator of My boy who received the price for Best Debut. Graduated at the Academy of Art in Ghent, he has reached the ripe old age of thirty and displays a very sober outlook on life, displaying a keen eye for human behaviour, very apparent in his comics.

Broken Frontier: A nomination at one of the worlds largest comic festivals,, the price for Best Debut at the largest Belgian comic festival, Strip Turnhout, numerous praise in the international press. They are all very fine accolades from the comics world but does it also open new doors for you?

Olivier Schrauwen: I laboured a long time on My boy and the only thing that kept me busy during that period was finishing my comic. What would come after the finalisation of that project never crossed my mind. The fact that the comic is receiced in such a grand manor totally flabbergasted me and the – for my norms, anyway – out-of-proportion attention it accumulates in the media, I find that to be very funny.

Continue to the full review at Broken Frontier.

Doomed to be cancelled ??
Scalped - Vertigo

Remember earlier when there was more leeway when it came to sales on Vertigo titles? This is true but they are not immune from cancellation. This series is selling about as much as the recently cancelled American Virgin and more than the about-to-be-restarted-at-a-new-number-one Army @ Love. So Scalped is definitely on the chopping block, and it really doesn’t deserve to be. It is one of the best books to ever wear the Vertigo imprint, and that is saying a lot.

It tells the story of Dashiell Red Horse, a bad seed who returns to the Indian reservation where he was born looking for trouble. He hooks up with Chief Lincoln Red Crow, the man who controls almost everything in the reservation. He places Red Horse on the tribal police force to act as his personal enforcer in order to help clean up the reservation in preparation for the opening of a brand new casino. But Red Horse is secretly an undercover FBI agent, set to bring Red Crow to justice for killing two FBI agents 30 years in the past.

The comic is equal parts Sopranos, Wiseguy and The Departed. There is a reason why Scalped writer Jason Aaron is getting high-profile work at Marvel and Top Cow. Because Joe Quesada and Mark Silvestri know how great a writer he is. You should pick up this series and find out for yourself.

Continue to the full review at Broken Frontier.

Comics are dominating Hollywood & his writers.
Column by Jason M. Burns, 2007.

As a writer I am repped by one of the major talent agencies in the film/TV industry. Outside of my work as a comic writer, I also develop television and film projects in both the scripted and reality universes. This was my dream as a kid growing up in my small Massachusetts town and I still need to pinch myself on a regular basis to make sure I’m not asleep, or worse yet, dead. What’s interesting to me now however is the way the comic industry is affecting the entertainment industry as a whole. The more popular it becomes the more Hollywood tries to adapt to cater to it.

Nowadays screenplay writers are being pushed by their representation to turn their ideas into graphic novels as opposed to going straight to script. In the last two weeks alone I have met with more than a dozen established industry writers who have worked on everything from Seinfeld to major motion pictures… simply because their agents and managers can sell their ideas more easily if they have the visual to go along with it. This is the new Hollywood standard… package an intellectual property in book form and reap the benefits on the backend. It’s become so popular, that talent agencies across the board are establishing comic book/graphic novel divisions at their firms.

Continue to the full review at Broken Frontier.

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