Holy!
12.12.2001, 14:26
Freuen wir uns auf eine Serie, die meiner Meinung nach verdammt geil werden wird: `Gotham Central’ (wurde in diesem Forum, glaube ich, bereits erwähnt) wird definitiv 2002 als ongoing series starten. Ed Brubaker (Batman), Greg Rucka (’Tec) und der großartige Michael Lark (Superman: War of the worlds, Legend of the Hawkman, Terminal City) erzählen darin Stories der hartgesottenen Gothamer Cops, die wir alle aus den Batman-Reihen kennen (und schätzen, nech’) und die Stadt, Einfluß und Mythos des Dunklen Ritters aus einer einzigartigen, menschlichen Perspektive beleuchten werden.
Hier die Meldungen von Newsarama und Comicbookresources (Vorsicht: eventuelle BAT-SPOILER!!!):
A few months ago, Newsarama reported on a rumor involving a possible new DC ongoing series, centering on the Gotham City Police Department, and while the series has not yet been placed on the publisher’s schedule, this week it was confirmed a ‘Gotham Central’ series is in development, possibly for a summer 2002 launch. And as originally rumored, writers Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker and penciler Michael (Legends of the Hawkman) Lark are attached.
“Gotham Central is the DC Universe cop book, centering on the major crimes unit of the Gotham City Police Department now commanded by Maggie Sawyer,” Rucka explained to Newsarama.
“The series will feature two shifts, and the way it’s going to work is I’m going to write the ‘primary’ shift, which are pretty much the detectives established (or there have been attempts to establish them) in Detective Comics.
“Ed and I have come up with a second shift as well, and Ed’s going to handle that shift, including their shift commander. The book will follow the different shifts in rotating story arcs, and every so often there will be cases where the shifts will interact/coincide.”
“The fundamental question of the series is what is it like to be a cop in Gotham City…the larger question is what is it like to be a cop in the DCU Universe,” Rucka continued. “It’s got to be very hard to wear a badge and a gun and believe in your job and know at the end of the day, there’s going to be this other guy who can come in and do everything you can’t to solve the problem, and maybe not even solve the problem, but maybe create more trouble than he’s worth.”
For Brubaker, Gotham Central is the “cop book” he says he’s been wanting to do since before he even first signed on in the Bat-office. Said Brubaker, “Ever since I read the first issue of Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross’ Marvels, really, I thought how cool it would be to do a cop's eye view of the world in a world (instead of a photographer) where there are superheroes running around in your city…where there's a Bat-signal on the roof of the police station and the mayor and the chief of police are basically telling you, 'when you can't do your job, there's someone else who can.'"
Being grounded in a long-established superhero universe is also part of the appeal for Brubaker. “One of the things I kept thinking about when we started the proposal…imagine something like Powers or Top Ten where you actually know who the superheroes are,” he said. “Where it's not superheroes similar to the ones we know - it's the actual guys.
“Imagine a world when they're interviewing some, supervillain, and it's a supervillain you've been reading about for 30 years, or when they go to prison to interview a criminal, they're going to Arkham Asylum to interview the Mad Hatter or someone like that. So I thought that was a major selling point."
For Lark, who is under exclsuive contract to DC, it came down to finding a regular assignment that got him excited, and the chance to work with what he calls, “without compare, the two best crime writers in the business.”
“I've been aching for a chance to do a monthly, as both an artistic challenge and a career move, but I know that I have a pretty short attention span,” explained the artist. “I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep my interest up for a superhero book every month, but I also know that I would get burned out on a Vertigo-type book. I wanted to find a monthly that wouldn't end up boring me before the end of the first year.
”Then Ed just happened to mention that he and Greg were cooking up an idea for a book that would sort of be like a cop drama in Gotham - I call it ‘GCPD Blue’ - and I thought it would be the perfect book for me. I would get to draw a lot of dramatic, emotional scenes of cops interrogating witnesses, etc. And I'd get to draw Batman and that wonderful Rogue's Gallery - the Penguin, Joker, Mad Hatter, etc. etc... I
begged and bothered him to let me do it, and finally they relented and signed me on. So now I get to have the best of both worlds, and I think it will be the kind of book that the readers will be really excited
about.”
”Being a nice mix of superhero and 'civilian' book, I think that the book will be very welcoming to new readers as well as hard-core Batman and Detective fans. “You don't need to know all about continuity, you don't need to start out being familiar with the characters - in fact you should be able to pick up any issue and be able to jump right in without any difficulty. But at the same time we'll be adding depth to a few side characters that have been around a while. All with some slam-bang action here and there. “
And while all involved preferred not to go into too much specific detail this early in the development stage, Brubaker briefly commented on the different approach he and Rucka plan to take…
"I think Greg and I write different stories,” he said. “He probably has more stuff that he wants to do
related to the continuity of the Batman world, though I'm sure he'll make it stand on his own as much as possible, and I know we want to keep this book out of the general continuity/crossover neighborhood and have this be a book you can read without knowing all about the entire DCU. It will be connected to the Batman-universe, and since Greg writes more of the cops in Detective, he probably has tons of ideas
for stuff he wanted to do in Detective.”
Rucka agreed, and now that he has a whole new book to explore the characters he’s developed in Detective, Gotham Central will wind up having an effect on that series as well.
Said Rucka, “As a result of being able to play with the police in the pages of their own book, I’m not going to be devoting as much time to them in Detective, so that will free up more Detective pages for – ideally – more Batman, and maybe even some Batman and [gasp!!!] Robin…
“But yeah, that will definitely be the effect, and in fact, that was actually one of the things discussed with DC. They said, ‘Okay Greg, if we let you do this will you stop it with the cops in Detective?’ To which I said, ‘I won’t stop it, but I’ll certainly scale it way back’…[laughs]”
On the flipside of the equation, Brubaker promised, “a little Batman here and there,” in the new series.
“One of things DC sort of requested was that we see some of the characters from the Bat-books here and there. But that's what the book is about, anyway, so it was no problem. It's not just about the cops, it's about the cops in that city. How they deal with that kind of world.”
Look for more details on Gotham Central when DC officially places the series on their schedule.
RUCKA AND BRUBAKER TAKE ON 'GOTHAM CENTRAL'
Thursday Ed Brubaker, in an interview with CBR to be appearing shortly, briefly mentioned some news about an upcoming project coming from DC Comics in 2002.
"Michael Lark ('Terminal City,' 'Hawkman Legends') and Greg Rucka ('Queen and Country') and I will be working on a new series called 'Gotham Central,'" said Brubaker. "Greg will write three issues and then I'll write three issues."
Regarding the length of series Brubaker commented, "It will be an ongoing series until they decide to end it."
"It's about cops in Gotham City and what it's like being a cop in the DCU. There's a lot of commercial potential. I'd compare it to Busiek's 'Marvels' series. We've seen the superhero world through the eyes of a reporter, I wanted to work on a book that showed that world through the eyes of the cops."
Brubaker said he wanted Gotham Central to explore themes such as, "How does it feel when you can't solve a case and the commissioner has to go upstairs and flick the switch on the Bat-Signal?"
Hier die Meldungen von Newsarama und Comicbookresources (Vorsicht: eventuelle BAT-SPOILER!!!):
A few months ago, Newsarama reported on a rumor involving a possible new DC ongoing series, centering on the Gotham City Police Department, and while the series has not yet been placed on the publisher’s schedule, this week it was confirmed a ‘Gotham Central’ series is in development, possibly for a summer 2002 launch. And as originally rumored, writers Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker and penciler Michael (Legends of the Hawkman) Lark are attached.
“Gotham Central is the DC Universe cop book, centering on the major crimes unit of the Gotham City Police Department now commanded by Maggie Sawyer,” Rucka explained to Newsarama.
“The series will feature two shifts, and the way it’s going to work is I’m going to write the ‘primary’ shift, which are pretty much the detectives established (or there have been attempts to establish them) in Detective Comics.
“Ed and I have come up with a second shift as well, and Ed’s going to handle that shift, including their shift commander. The book will follow the different shifts in rotating story arcs, and every so often there will be cases where the shifts will interact/coincide.”
“The fundamental question of the series is what is it like to be a cop in Gotham City…the larger question is what is it like to be a cop in the DCU Universe,” Rucka continued. “It’s got to be very hard to wear a badge and a gun and believe in your job and know at the end of the day, there’s going to be this other guy who can come in and do everything you can’t to solve the problem, and maybe not even solve the problem, but maybe create more trouble than he’s worth.”
For Brubaker, Gotham Central is the “cop book” he says he’s been wanting to do since before he even first signed on in the Bat-office. Said Brubaker, “Ever since I read the first issue of Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross’ Marvels, really, I thought how cool it would be to do a cop's eye view of the world in a world (instead of a photographer) where there are superheroes running around in your city…where there's a Bat-signal on the roof of the police station and the mayor and the chief of police are basically telling you, 'when you can't do your job, there's someone else who can.'"
Being grounded in a long-established superhero universe is also part of the appeal for Brubaker. “One of the things I kept thinking about when we started the proposal…imagine something like Powers or Top Ten where you actually know who the superheroes are,” he said. “Where it's not superheroes similar to the ones we know - it's the actual guys.
“Imagine a world when they're interviewing some, supervillain, and it's a supervillain you've been reading about for 30 years, or when they go to prison to interview a criminal, they're going to Arkham Asylum to interview the Mad Hatter or someone like that. So I thought that was a major selling point."
For Lark, who is under exclsuive contract to DC, it came down to finding a regular assignment that got him excited, and the chance to work with what he calls, “without compare, the two best crime writers in the business.”
“I've been aching for a chance to do a monthly, as both an artistic challenge and a career move, but I know that I have a pretty short attention span,” explained the artist. “I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep my interest up for a superhero book every month, but I also know that I would get burned out on a Vertigo-type book. I wanted to find a monthly that wouldn't end up boring me before the end of the first year.
”Then Ed just happened to mention that he and Greg were cooking up an idea for a book that would sort of be like a cop drama in Gotham - I call it ‘GCPD Blue’ - and I thought it would be the perfect book for me. I would get to draw a lot of dramatic, emotional scenes of cops interrogating witnesses, etc. And I'd get to draw Batman and that wonderful Rogue's Gallery - the Penguin, Joker, Mad Hatter, etc. etc... I
begged and bothered him to let me do it, and finally they relented and signed me on. So now I get to have the best of both worlds, and I think it will be the kind of book that the readers will be really excited
about.”
”Being a nice mix of superhero and 'civilian' book, I think that the book will be very welcoming to new readers as well as hard-core Batman and Detective fans. “You don't need to know all about continuity, you don't need to start out being familiar with the characters - in fact you should be able to pick up any issue and be able to jump right in without any difficulty. But at the same time we'll be adding depth to a few side characters that have been around a while. All with some slam-bang action here and there. “
And while all involved preferred not to go into too much specific detail this early in the development stage, Brubaker briefly commented on the different approach he and Rucka plan to take…
"I think Greg and I write different stories,” he said. “He probably has more stuff that he wants to do
related to the continuity of the Batman world, though I'm sure he'll make it stand on his own as much as possible, and I know we want to keep this book out of the general continuity/crossover neighborhood and have this be a book you can read without knowing all about the entire DCU. It will be connected to the Batman-universe, and since Greg writes more of the cops in Detective, he probably has tons of ideas
for stuff he wanted to do in Detective.”
Rucka agreed, and now that he has a whole new book to explore the characters he’s developed in Detective, Gotham Central will wind up having an effect on that series as well.
Said Rucka, “As a result of being able to play with the police in the pages of their own book, I’m not going to be devoting as much time to them in Detective, so that will free up more Detective pages for – ideally – more Batman, and maybe even some Batman and [gasp!!!] Robin…
“But yeah, that will definitely be the effect, and in fact, that was actually one of the things discussed with DC. They said, ‘Okay Greg, if we let you do this will you stop it with the cops in Detective?’ To which I said, ‘I won’t stop it, but I’ll certainly scale it way back’…[laughs]”
On the flipside of the equation, Brubaker promised, “a little Batman here and there,” in the new series.
“One of things DC sort of requested was that we see some of the characters from the Bat-books here and there. But that's what the book is about, anyway, so it was no problem. It's not just about the cops, it's about the cops in that city. How they deal with that kind of world.”
Look for more details on Gotham Central when DC officially places the series on their schedule.
RUCKA AND BRUBAKER TAKE ON 'GOTHAM CENTRAL'
Thursday Ed Brubaker, in an interview with CBR to be appearing shortly, briefly mentioned some news about an upcoming project coming from DC Comics in 2002.
"Michael Lark ('Terminal City,' 'Hawkman Legends') and Greg Rucka ('Queen and Country') and I will be working on a new series called 'Gotham Central,'" said Brubaker. "Greg will write three issues and then I'll write three issues."
Regarding the length of series Brubaker commented, "It will be an ongoing series until they decide to end it."
"It's about cops in Gotham City and what it's like being a cop in the DCU. There's a lot of commercial potential. I'd compare it to Busiek's 'Marvels' series. We've seen the superhero world through the eyes of a reporter, I wanted to work on a book that showed that world through the eyes of the cops."
Brubaker said he wanted Gotham Central to explore themes such as, "How does it feel when you can't solve a case and the commissioner has to go upstairs and flick the switch on the Bat-Signal?"