Who's Who In The CBU Update 2008

Who are... Park and Barb?

Barbara Lien-Cooper writes the comic GUN STREET GIRL at Panel 2 Panel, was an original founder of Sequential Tart, is the managing editrix of the 2004 Eisner award-winning print magazine COMIC BOOK ARTIST, and was named by Mark Millar (The Authority, Ultimates, Wanted) as one of the three most promising new talents in the next wave of comics writing.

Park Cooper started writing about comics at the now-defunct DC FANZINE website.

"Through Dangers Untold" -- The Jake Forbes Interview

By Park Cooper

Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I fought my way to the convention beyond San Diego, for my will is strong and my kingdom is great. But I didn't interview manga editor and _Jim Henson's Return To Labyrinth_ writer Jake Forbes.

So I've back-dated time and turned the world upside-down, and I've done it all for Jake.

Oh, also: one of us always tells the truth, and one of us always lies. Although Jake would say that that isn't actually true.




Park Cooper: Nice to meet you! We greatly enjoyed your adaptations on Fruits Basket.

Jake Forbes: Thanks. It's nice to meet you too.

PC: Did you leave to better pursue your writing possibilities, like Labyrinth...?

JF: It was a combination of wanting to work on more original projects like Labyrinth, as well as to pursue other career prospects in game design, which is what I've been doing for my day job for the past two years. I still keep involved in manga with adaptations for Viz and the ongoing Labyrinth series for Tokyopop.

PC: Ah, game design, please tell me more about that...

JF: Breaking into the video game industry, in any position other than QA (testing) is a difficult proposition - especially when you're not a fresh-out-of-college entry level guy...

PC: Oh, VIDEO games. Oh, really, that makes it harder? Darn.

JF: I have always wanted to work in game design, but with a background in manga, editing and writing, even though I had a lot of successes, it's not the experience needed for most game positions...so when I found a position writing quests for a massively multiplayer RPG, I decided to go for it... and I got the job!

PC: Man. Lucky.

JF: Yeah, most game companies expect you to have worked on a least one major shipped title - it's a tricky chicken/egg conundrum. Anyway, I've now "broken in."

PC: Gosh. Where do you live? Or is/was it a telecommute…?

JF: San Francisco. I relocated in order to pursue the job. Incidentally, I'd long wanted to move there anyway. :)

PC: Yeah… sigh... So what game/s have you been working on, or can you say?

JF: I can say, but the game had a bit of a tragic ending. It was Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising. Two weeks ago they laid off the team and all-but cancelled the project. I wrote over 150,000 words for that game and now they'll never see the light of day. Sigh... That's life in the games industry though. There's always that possibility. I'm just a bit shocked they pulled the plug so close to release.

PC: “All-but-cancelled...” No hope?

JF: Nah. The longer they wait, the more outdated everything they did becomes. Trying to get it going later would probably be more good money after bad. I really enjoyed the experience, but it did make me hanker for my Tokyopop days where a project would take just 6 months or so from license to release, with as many as 20 series under my belt at a time. It was much more hectic, but more hands on and I always knew where the project stood. At a big 100+ employee game company, I'm a very small fish in a very big pond. I felt very out of the loop.

PC: How did you come to work with Tokyopop?

JF: Tokyopop was my first "real" job out of college. When I first applied, I didn't even realize they were a manga publisher - I thought I was going to be an editor for the website. Back then, right after Mixx became Tokypop, it was all about the dot com. You weren't allowed to say Tokyopop without the .com When I first started, I was a junior editing, doing mostly copy editing on titles like Sailor Moon, Rayearth, Saint Tail and Gundam. It was a crash course for me - and not just me - we were all learning as we went along.

PC: What school did you go to... what major? Let's give the readers a look into the Jake Forbes Path…

JF: I was a film production major at USC. It was the only school I applied to at the time, and I picked it for pretty shallow reasons (I like movies and it is the most respected "commercial" film school). I really enjoyed my experience there, and I learned a lot about narrative and working in teams, but as far as giving me a leg up in a career, I didn't really make the most of it. In retrospect, I'd probably have been served better at a less commercial more artsy film school like NYU or UCLA, but things worked out just fine in the end. I did take a few game design courses that gave me a better appreciation for that. If I was applying to school now, I'd most likely aim for a game design program, but that wasn't an option at the time. Now schools like USC are producing some pretty amazing student game projects like Flow. Whereas student films are seldom anything more than a sample for your "reel," or available for free on video websites, student games are actually being released commercially.

Right now I am enjoying some freelance time to catch up with Return to Labyrinth volume 3, as well as picking up a new adaptation job for Viz - Yakitate Japan (starting with volume 11). I am pursuing some additional game design leads . After having worked on a MASSIVE project, I've realized that while I love games, that isn't the kind of project I want to work on. Right now casual and portable games have a much stronger appeal for me, both as a designer and a gamer. I've also been feeling some nostalgia for manga publishing again... Right now is an exciting time for "global" manga with so many talented artists emerging with both the technical skill and professionalism it takes to build an industry. Original manga series without a media tie in like Labyrinth, Sabrina or Warcraft have thus far been a questionable business model. There are some huge hits like Dramacon and Bizenghast, but it seems clear that further innovations in the market are needed if the category is going to continue to grow. Going back to movies and games, anyone working on one of those projects has the benefit of a decent salary and benefits, or in the case of film, union protections, but comics creators must usually work out of a labor of love. There's also the challenge of adapting for new medias. Graphic novels are great and see continued growth, but they are a major time and money commitment to produce and aren't right for everyone. I don't pretend to have any answers, but I'd love to be involved with tackling those challenges again.

PC: Is there a list of all the manga you've been a part of working on? If so or if not, how many, do you think?

JF: Here's the ANN listing. Everything on there, plus Yakitate.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=8577

PC: I didn't realize Priest was a manhwa... Barb is surprised manhwa was being done back then...

JF: Yeah, Priest is a very atypical looking manhwa. On most levels, it looks more like Mike Mignola than other Manhwa. Priest was one of my favorite rewrites to be involved with because of the history. Looking back at the first few volumes, I'm embarrassed by some really obvious typos, but the flashback story arc with the crusades, inquisition and young Ivan is some of the work I'm most proud of.

PC: I see you worked with Harlem Beat… That's the one with "Nate Torres," right? If so, I follow that series...

JF: That's the one. It's actually nearing its completion (as Rebound)- making it the longest running Tokyopop series EVER by a wide margin.

PC: Aw, almost over? Huh. I noticed not long ago that "Nate" had a sign or a mug or something in his room with the name Tohru on it... his name is really Tohru, isn't it.

JF: I confess, I haven't followed it since the Rebound switchover. That went to another editor. I did enjoy working on the series. The name changes weren't my deal though - I inherited that back in the day. :P It never would have happened that way now. Yeah, Torres is really Tohru. It's funny, in one of the last volumes of Harlem Beat/Rebound, you can see a character reading "Mixxzine." That's how long ago it was completed in Japan!

PC: I see why it happened... but I thought it was smart to give him a Hispanic name, if one is to change his name to something non-Japanese at all...

JF: Name changes in a series like that just aren't practical - the setting is so obviously Japan, and eventually the characters start traveling internationally, so it's kind of hard to justify non-Japanese names at that point.

PC: I know, it's totally odd. But I couldn't help but wonder if it might draw some young Texas readers onto the title... (I'm in Austin.)

JF: In the first few volumes, there are other things that are changed as well - like food stuffs being changed from Japanese street foods to western foods. It's not unprecedented, but again, easier to do with a fantasy series like Dragonball than a series set in modern Japan. The series, while not a commercial success, was one of the first hits with Librarians. changes or not, it definitely had appeal to markets outside of traditional manga circles. The early volumes of HB seem more western than, say, SLAM DUNK, which gets into the high school drama a lot sooner.

PC: Yes… So what's a day in the life of Jake like? What did you do yesterday?

JF: Hm... It's a pretty typical freelancer's life right now. Wake up, get coffee, catch up with news websites & e-mail, then write, edit and read... and procrastination. Too much procrastination. I do miss having a desk in a room full of peers!

PC: Hm, I'm afraid I don't know anything about Yakitate Japan

JF: You should! It's great!

PC: Or Fullmetal Alchemist... I tried watching the anime of Fullmetal Alchemist, and just couldn't get into it... the age level felt a little low for me or something…

JF: Yakitate Japan is one of the best comedy manga I've ever read. Basically, it's a sports manga where the sport is baking.

PC: I see, sort of like Iron Wok Jan.

JF: But with more heart, and, at least most of the time, more realistic. Although the latest baking foe was hardly grounded in realism - at the Monaco Cup baking competition, the French team is three brothers who stack on top of each other and move as one so that the eldest brother doesn't have to use his legs or mouth - that way his brain can be solely dedicated to those portions used in the baking of bread. It's pretty absurd and absolutely hilarious when you see the brothers beneath their cloak.

PC: Okay, so tell me about Labyrinth.

JF: Yay! I know Labyrinth. Basically, the manga is an original story that takes place 13 years after the film. The main character is Toby Williams, the little brother of Sarah, who was just a baby in the film. Now he's a disaffected teen who discovers one day that he's been named heir to the Labyrinth. The first volume covers Toby's arrival in the Labyrinth and Jareth, the Goblin King, announcing his retirement. In Volume 2, released this month, Toby comes to terms with the surprise announcement and prepares for the new role. The manga story stands alone on one level, but it increasingly ties into the events of the movie in ways that I think will surprise readers. The last page of volume 2 is quite a shocker.

PC: How did your involvement on this happen? Did you pitch "Hey, you know what would be great?" Or did the Henson people come to Tokyopop and say...

JF: I first pitched the idea at Tokyopop when I was an editor there. The company was starting to do "cinemanga" film comics and looking into other licensing opportunities, and there were two properties I was really excited about - Labyrinth and Warcraft! The latter I had the pleasure of working on as editor for most of the first volume, but Labyrinth was still in negotiations when I left my editing position to go freelance. I kept in touch with the editor and pitched my own take on the property as a writer. Henson liked the outline, and soon everything fell into place. Tokyopop first approached Henson, but it turned out they were thinking along similar lines at the time. As Mike Polis (who was managing the Labyrinth property at the time) said, Jareth is a textbook bishonen. It was a great fit visually, and the combination of humor, drama and romance also made for a smooth transition to manga form. A lot of the post-movie fandom has focused mostly on Jareth/Sarah, but one of the biggest draws of the movie for me was the goblins, so I tried to play up that aspect in the manga as well.

PC: You've also answered my question about how you feel about the movie Labyrinth... how old were you when you first saw it?

JF: I saw Labyrinth twice in the theater (I was 9 or 10 at the time) and watched the making-of special on HBO many times. It was on my regular VHS rental rotation as well, along with the Star Wars movies, the Last Unicorn, Clash of the Titans and the other 80s genre classics. I had the soundtrack as well. While I have long since become a fan of David Bowie's full catalog, for many years he was just Jareth to me. :) It has really been a treat to work in the world that meant so much to me as a child, both in writing lines for familiar characters, but especially in expanding the lore of this world. I try to do right by Henson, Froud and crew as they really are my inspiration, not just here but in how my creative brain thinks.

PC: Man, those ARE some 80s genre classics.

And now, comrade... Are you now or have you ever been a gamer...? Cause you missed Tron on that list...

JF: I've been a lifelong video gamer, as well as a fan of card and board games (and even occasional dalliances with pen and paper RPGs). For a while I was a Japanophile in my gaming tastes, loving the Japanese school of RPGs and tactical games, but lately I've been drawn to smaller quirkier titles for the DS, XBox Live and casual games markets. 50+ hours for one game just doesn't hold the same appeal it once does. There are so many things I want to do with the time I have - it's hard to justify those big chunks. It seems like a lot of people are sharing those feelings.

I enjoyed Tron, but it doesn't mean as much to me as it did for a lot of gamers of the era. I leaned towards fantasy in both books and movies, at least in my younger days ('cuz now I'm so OLD!).

PC: Yeah when you first said what else you've been doing, I presumed RPGs, which tells you something about me... Got a favorite game right now? or a top three anyway?

JF: Top three of recent months... Picross, Bioshock and Chocolatier. I have Halo 3, but GASP! I still haven't played it. :(

PC: Mmmmm. What are you reading these days?

JF: Not that it needs plugging, but I'll suggest everyone check out Jason Thompson's Complete Manga Guide. The quantity of reviews is unprecedented, but it's the articles that impress me the most. Wow! (I actually contributed reviews to the book... under a pseudonym).

PC: So are you editing anything right now for anyone?

JF: Right now just FMA and Yakitate. Yakitate is just about the hardest manga I've worked on due to the large amounts of complex punning and the amount of technical stuff with baking and nutrition.

PC: Ah, yes, the puns

JF: I really enjoy the Adaptation that Drew Williams did in volumes 1-10. Those are some talented shoes to fill. I hope fans of the series will see a near seamless transition to volume 11.

PC: Are you editing anything now as such?

JF: Like I said, I'm only working on the adaptations of FMA and Yakitate, which is a script edit.

I have a few other pitches for original projects that I'm working on, but first I need to get Labyrinth 3 and 4 done as quickly and tightly as possible.

PC: Understood. Anything else we can shine a light on for ya?

JF: I hope readers who missed volume 1 of Return to Labyrinth will check it out now that the second volume is out. Both Chris Lie, the artist, and I made huge leaps forward in our respective crafts with this volume. I'd also like to thank our editor, Tim Beedle, for pulling everything together, as well as all the talented artists who contributed to the pinup gallery at the back of volume 2. Somehow it made all of the original characters like Skub and Spittledrum and Moppet seem much more "real" seeing them drawn by a dozen different artists. That was one of the most exciting moments in my professional life. :)














Messages from Park and Barb:

Incidentally, the Nibleys, from this, now have a podcast of their own. It was Barb's idea.

This is it



What’s Good?
With Park and Barb

Barb says: What’s good? Write us and tell us what you’re reading that you like, in comics, manga, or whatever… especially if what you’re reading has a website where we can find out more about it and stuff! Use the link at the top of this column where Park’s name (or mine) goes… If enough people write to us, we'll print it here on the Show...




Atelier Marie and Elie -Zarlburg Alchemist- Volume 1

This new manga that's out now was the first adapted by Barb for Tokyopop... You know, someone does a literal translation of the Japanese-to-English, and then someone comes and rewrites it so you don't end up with 'All your base are belong to us.' Well, with Atelier Marie, that second someone was Barb, so please pick it up and enjoy it.

"Welcome to the Zarlburg Royal Magic Academy-- producers of the best alchemists in the world! When Marie, Zalburg's prodigal daughter and premier alchemist, returns to her alma mater after thrilling journeys in many foreign lands, she suddenly realizes things are not too exciting at home. But all that changes after running into fellow alchemist Elie, who has plans to open an alchemy workshop and become famous."

Barb enjoyed it, I enjoyed it, there's adventure, comedy, fantasy, all that stuff you like.

So please go to your local store or however you purchase things and get it. Enjoy!



http://www.panel2panel.com/gsg-archives.html
http://www.wickermanstudios.com
http://www.halfdeadcomic.com
http://www.comicspace.com/wickermanstudios

http://www.amazon.com/Atelier-Marie-Elie-Zarlburg-Alchemist/dp/1598165259





And you can now get Septagon Studios stuff online too, like this thing: SCORN

SCORN is now available for pre-order in a number of ways:
--Scorn 1 and 2 can be ordered directly from the Septagon Studios Web site
--e-mailing store@septagonstudios.com, especially if one is a retailer, because there are special benefits
--Scorn is also available through Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Scorn-1-Obsessed-Kevin-Moyers/dp/097396670X

http://www.amazon.com/Scorn-2-Rage-Kevin-Moyers/dp/0973966718