Robserecaps Fourteen – episode 45 The Extreme Connection! Avengers! Batman! Ben 10!
by Joe
Another pivot off the timeline, as the focus seems to be about Extreme Studios, the Rob’s pivot off of Image, and the folks that got their start there, moving on to bigger and better things. You can check the episode out here.
- when the Rob was running Extreme Studios, there were 65 creators on site making books
- Talks about the difference between good editors (Mark Gruenwald) and bad editors (Mike Carlin)
- We start with Marat Mychaels who had been with the Rob since day one. The Rob tells a story about driving to FedEx to deliver pages with Marat and the Rob opening the door on the freeway? Not sure how that’s related
- The Rob talks about some artists that are great technically but are bad storytellers, can’t move your eye through a page
- At San Diego Comic Con, before it was taken over by movie and TV, the Rob spent hours chewing Art Adams (with an impression to boot)’s ear about who are good artists or not
- Marat has moved off mainstream comics, doing crowdfunded comics, has his own publishing arm, Counterpoint Comics (which seems to be inactive) and convention appearance
- Keith Giffen (Salty Keith!) taught the Rob that by doing breakdowns and layouts on a book, it lets you control the product
- the Rob states in the early 2000’s, Marvel and DC had edicts to be more photo realistic to get rid of the ‘Image Style’
- Another time, the Rob went to San Diego Comic Con 2001 in disguise, even Erik Larsen didn’t recognize him, neither did the publisher of Avatar, Jimmy Jay or his mother!
- Extreme Studios ruined many artists as the Rob was paying $300 to $400 a page, which was double the rate anywhere else
- Dan Fraga got his start at Extreme Studios doing breakdowns, then went on to be a storyboard artist for such films as Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer, the Transporter, Dragon Ball Evolution as well as Taylor Swift and Brittany Spears music videos
- the Rob reveals Wizard Magazine had complicated business deals, trading favors and whatnot, with Todd McFarlane, which is why he, Jim Lee, etc. never made it to the top of their artist lists
- Wizard Magazine came into being after the Rob and the Image guys success so they were not as swayed by them
- Overstreet had a better handle on how to accurately price back issues over Wizard Magazine, who tried to push the idea of comics as stocks, telling you how little your collection was worth
- the Rob feels the speculator market is done, but let’s say agree to disagree
- One of the Rob’s favorite days was when Wizard Magazine stopped publishing, far outlived it’s usefulness
- Chap Yaep was another person that came through Extreme Studios, ended up hating the comics system and ended up being part of the Ben 10 animation team
- Jeff Matsuda got noticed by sending his samples to the Rob in a giant, bright pink envelope, he could draw a full book in 10 days, earning his $600 to $800 a page rate
- JJ Abrams contacted the Rob to do an Alias comic book, which Ande Parks worked on, but never saw the light of day as ABC pulled the plug on it at the last minute
- Ande Parks would go onto be Visual Development Supervisor for most of the Marvel Cinematic stuff
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