'Bad Guys' -- Gargoyles Spinoff a Go!
- By L Mouse
- Published 03/8/2007
One of the coolest things about being active in fandom is when you see a little story like the one Missy just posted about the Bad Guys comic for Disney's Gargoyles ... and you realize there's much more to the tale.
On the surface, it's just a spinoff of the Gargoyles comic book which is based on an early 90's cartoon that Disney has mostly ignored for well over a decade. And the Gargoyles comic itself has barely made a blip on comic news in the grand scheme of things. 'Bad Guys a go!' just doesn't seem like an interesting story unless you're one of the small number of enthusiastic fans who've never forgotten this show and never given up on it.
But there's so much more to this little bit of news than just an announcement that there will be a spinoff comic based on a cancelled 90's cartoon. It's the human interest aspect behind this that I think is so cool.
Greg Weisman created Gargoyles. While not the only genius behind the show, it's definitely his baby. And while most of the other writers have moved on to other things, Greg has been around and promoting the show, since it went off the air. He's never given up on it. And in that time, he's been wonderful about interacting with fans, providing teasing little tidbits, running the occasional contest, unexpectedly dropping into chat rooms, taking a very big part in the Gargoyles Fandom Reunion a several years back on this site, answering fan questions in Ask Greg on the Gargoyles fan site Station 8, attending conventions, and generally keeping the fans interested and the dream alive.
Greg's one of the nicest pros I can think of, too. He's just cool. He's very down to earth and approachable at cons -- and incredibly patient with a pretty diverse and sometimes, uh, interesting band of fans. Gargoyles fandom is, by and large, one of the friendlier fandoms out there but it does have its share of 'strong personalities' of varying stripes. He puts up with us with quite a bit of grace.
When Greg announced that there would be a Gargoyles comic made by Slave Labor Graphics, the fandom made a collectively cautious squeee. Cautious, because we knew the odds of it achieving commercial success were slim. But it sold well -- the first issue sold out before I could buy one, darn it! -- and despite a few bumps along the way, it looks like it's doing okay.
And it's a good comic.
Now, Bad Guys is a spinoff for Gargoyles that Greg had suggested to Disney years and years ago. He had four ideas, actually but this one got as far as a Leica reel. That Leica reel of Bad Guys has been a fan favorite at Gargoyles conventions for years, so many of the more enthusiastic fans have seen it. (And yes, this fandom is big enough to have an annual convention. The next one is this summer in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.)
To see see Greg get a green light for a Bad Guys comic is just incredibly cool. Fnally, he gets a chance to tell the stories he's been teasing us with for years. (Greg, if you read this -- congratulations! May this lead to bigger and better things for the Gargoyles universe, both for you and for us fans who love this universe.)
But there's more to the story. From a fan standpoint, it gets better.
Karine Charlebois (art) and Stephanie Lostimolo (tones), have been active in the fandom as fans since the very beginning. And now they get to play professionally in this world.
Lostimolo started out as a young teenager (thirteen or fourteen, if I recall correctly) drawing some very cool fan art in the fandom under the name of Raptor Woman. She once blew my mail box up with an oversized pic -- I had to call my ISP to get it deleted because it was so big it locked my account up. It retrospect, I should have been a lot more gracious than I was. I think I grumped at her a bit, at the time, not realizing she was a kid.
Stephanie has since gone on to have some pretty major credits and, probably, outgrow the Raptor Woman handle. Her Web site is here and it's shiny.
Karine Charlebois is a pro animator these days, but she, too, was a Gargoyles fan artist when she was in college. She worked on at least one fanzine, Wintersmith Dreams, that I'm aware of and on numerous Gargoyles-related web sites. Her alterego/avatar online is a yellow gargoyle.
To see both Stephanie and Kanthara working professionally with Greg on Gargoyles project is too cool for words.
When I saw Missy's article on Bad Guys I was struck by how many people will never realize how much history there is behind the scenes. This little comic is a project with heart and soul and people's dreams behind it.
In the words of Xanatos, "It's alive ... I've always wanted to say that!"
On the surface, it's just a spinoff of the Gargoyles comic book which is based on an early 90's cartoon that Disney has mostly ignored for well over a decade. And the Gargoyles comic itself has barely made a blip on comic news in the grand scheme of things. 'Bad Guys a go!' just doesn't seem like an interesting story unless you're one of the small number of enthusiastic fans who've never forgotten this show and never given up on it.
But there's so much more to this little bit of news than just an announcement that there will be a spinoff comic based on a cancelled 90's cartoon. It's the human interest aspect behind this that I think is so cool.
Greg Weisman created Gargoyles. While not the only genius behind the show, it's definitely his baby. And while most of the other writers have moved on to other things, Greg has been around and promoting the show, since it went off the air. He's never given up on it. And in that time, he's been wonderful about interacting with fans, providing teasing little tidbits, running the occasional contest, unexpectedly dropping into chat rooms, taking a very big part in the Gargoyles Fandom Reunion a several years back on this site, answering fan questions in Ask Greg on the Gargoyles fan site Station 8, attending conventions, and generally keeping the fans interested and the dream alive.
Greg's one of the nicest pros I can think of, too. He's just cool. He's very down to earth and approachable at cons -- and incredibly patient with a pretty diverse and sometimes, uh, interesting band of fans. Gargoyles fandom is, by and large, one of the friendlier fandoms out there but it does have its share of 'strong personalities' of varying stripes. He puts up with us with quite a bit of grace.
When Greg announced that there would be a Gargoyles comic made by Slave Labor Graphics, the fandom made a collectively cautious squeee. Cautious, because we knew the odds of it achieving commercial success were slim. But it sold well -- the first issue sold out before I could buy one, darn it! -- and despite a few bumps along the way, it looks like it's doing okay.
Now, Bad Guys is a spinoff for Gargoyles that Greg had suggested to Disney years and years ago. He had four ideas, actually but this one got as far as a Leica reel. That Leica reel of Bad Guys has been a fan favorite at Gargoyles conventions for years, so many of the more enthusiastic fans have seen it. (And yes, this fandom is big enough to have an annual convention. The next one is this summer in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.)
To see see Greg get a green light for a Bad Guys comic is just incredibly cool. Fnally, he gets a chance to tell the stories he's been teasing us with for years. (Greg, if you read this -- congratulations! May this lead to bigger and better things for the Gargoyles universe, both for you and for us fans who love this universe.)
But there's more to the story. From a fan standpoint, it gets better.
Karine Charlebois (art) and Stephanie Lostimolo (tones), have been active in the fandom as fans since the very beginning. And now they get to play professionally in this world.
Lostimolo started out as a young teenager (thirteen or fourteen, if I recall correctly) drawing some very cool fan art in the fandom under the name of Raptor Woman. She once blew my mail box up with an oversized pic -- I had to call my ISP to get it deleted because it was so big it locked my account up. It retrospect, I should have been a lot more gracious than I was. I think I grumped at her a bit, at the time, not realizing she was a kid.
Stephanie has since gone on to have some pretty major credits and, probably, outgrow the Raptor Woman handle. Her Web site is here and it's shiny.
Karine Charlebois is a pro animator these days, but she, too, was a Gargoyles fan artist when she was in college. She worked on at least one fanzine, Wintersmith Dreams, that I'm aware of and on numerous Gargoyles-related web sites. Her alterego/avatar online is a yellow gargoyle.
To see both Stephanie and Kanthara working professionally with Greg on Gargoyles project is too cool for words.
When I saw Missy's article on Bad Guys I was struck by how many people will never realize how much history there is behind the scenes. This little comic is a project with heart and soul and people's dreams behind it.
In the words of Xanatos, "It's alive ... I've always wanted to say that!"