Notes from the Field: RE:READABILITY

I woke up this morning with a revelatory thought, something that may not have occured to anyone buying our book. We certainly know comics are expensive these days. And discerning buyers really have to make tough choices of which books to pick up or drop.

But let us talk about REPLAYABILITY!

My day job is working as a Cinematic Director at Sony Online Entertainment. Regardless we make games that people will want to play...over and over again. It's called replayability and a lot of game sites actually have that as part of their overall scoring mechanism. You probably already know this, since many comic readers tend to be gameheads too. I think the disconnect is we don't consider comics as a RE-READABLE resource. Which inherently can be if the work is deep and rich enough.

Our first logo way back in 2005.

Scott and I are big fans of a lot of the same kinds of entertainment. From films to comics we generally agree on the highwater marks and why they deserve to be as such. I believe this is our starting point when we jump into any creative endeavor, and =THE OVERMAN= is the first of it's kind. Meaning, we knew what wanted to do, and in our minds eye I think we were striving for something that could be re-visited time and time again.

We wanted =THE OVERMAN= to entertain us long after we finished the series.

Most modern comics are done on a monthly basis. The creative teams do not have the luxury of time to produce that kind of work time and time again. They may have a creator-owned series that they've really been able to develop. But I challenge you to find a comic today that has that REPLAY quality to it?

My initial attempts at modeling Dmitri in Maya.

By no means am I comparing our work to WATCHMEN. Watchmen is it's own comic culture icon. It was the perfect storm at the right time. However all things being equal we all know it's a dense story. I've reread it a couple of times and always pick up new things in it. Scott I believe has gone through three collected trades of the thing because he reads it so much. There's a lot to learn in that book.

You may say to yourself I'll wait for the trade when it comes to =THE OVERMAN= and I really do hope there is one. But because this series is so short I think you'll find that REREADABILITY factor creeping in and rewarding you sooner rather than later. We pack a lot in each issue and when you get the next issue, it may require reading the ones previous to it again, and then you'll start to see a much bigger picture emerging. By the time you get to the end...well I'll just say it's bigger than you think.

=s=