An Interview with Sam Roads and Kat Nicholson!

I had the pleasure of chatting to Sam Roads and Kat Nicholson, the creators of the brand new comic Silicon Heart.

1. First off, tell us a little bit about yourselves and Silicon Heart.
   
   
   Sam: I'm Sam, the writer. My background is in game development, including some award-winning The Lord of the Rings products. My first graphic novel, Kristo, told The Count of Monte Cristo, set in Soviet Russia. Silicon Heart is my second.
   
   
   Kat: I'm Kat, the artist. I work as a freelance comic-artist/illustrator and have worked on titles such as Transformers, Spiderman, Thunder Cats, Dream Works Tales, Moshi-Monsters, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack and more. :)
   
   

   
   January is a bullied teenager who finds solace in the embrace of Synthetic Being Rho. Her friends and family are unready to accept this, but when January takes a stand against the prejudice of the law, no-one is prepared for what happens next...
   
   
   

   
   
2. How did the two of you come to work on this project together? Was it an idea that you initially developed together, or was it something one of you thought up and then went out looking for an artist/writer?
   
   Sam: I generally write stories with some socio-political aspect. Silicon Heart was a direct response to an internet meme, which showed inter-racial marriage protestors from the 1960s, gay marriage protestors from the modern age and a slogan saying “Imagine how stupid you are going to look in 40 years.”
   
   
   
   
   
   
   I wondered what a 2045 society might be prejudiced against, and human/synthetic relationships seemed to fit the bill.
   
   I was really impressed with one particular piece Kat had uploaded to Facebook and I cold-pitched the story to her. She draws with great expressiveness and even her storyboards jump with emotion and energy.
   
   Kat: Having worked on kids comics for a good many years I was looking for something a bit more grown up, with more substance to it to sink my teeth into … Sam pitched Silicon Heart at exactly the right time, and I've been loving working on it so far! :D
   
   Here's the picture that caught Sam's eye if you're interested. It's a very personal piece, which again gave me the impression that Silicon Heart was the right project for me. :)
3. What have been the most enjoyable and the most challenging aspects of putting this together?
   
   Sam: The best part has been watching Kat exceed my imagination with her depictions of Jan and Rho. The challenging part has been raising the funds. We put together issue 1 ourselves, but we're going to need backers for a Kickstarter to get issues 2-4 made.
   
   Kat: For me one of the most challenging parts of the project has been capturing Rho's expressions! He's a very low-emoter, and coming from an animation background I tend to draw BIG emotions, so even when I thought I was toning things down with Rho I was still often giving him too much emotion for Sam's vision. Drawing him is just so much fun though, the two of them (Rho and Jan) together are just so sweet. :)The great bit for me is always getting feedback; both from Sam and from our readers, it's wonderful to hear of people enjoying the world you've helped to create. :)
   
4. What have been the benefits of working on a project with another person?
   
   Sam: One person can play a melody. Harmony requires two.
   
   Kat: (Sam's yet to hear me sing) ;) Seriously though, Sam's right - I could never have written a story like Silicon Heart, but I'm glad to be able to contribute to the project with my art. :)
5. What are your future plans for Silicon Heart? Would you like to see it become a long-running project or is it more of a standalone piece?
   
   Sam: The first goal is to get the whole story made. If that happens, I'll look into whether the art-house indie publishers are interested, both in the UK and in the US. A goal beyond that might be to seek an adaptation to radio or TV.
   
   Silicon Heart is a complete story, but we know of at least one of the secondary characters whose story might be worth telling. Several of our fans have expressed an interest in hearing more about the world of Silicon Heart!
6. It's so important to help out independent projects in the arts. Tell us how we can help Silicon Heart!
   
   Sam: Please check out our kickstarter. :)
   
   Kat: And if you like it, please tell your friends about it! The more people see the project the more chance we have of being able to complete it :)

Thanks very much to Sam and Kat, who are both lovely and have both worked so hard on Silicon Heart. It can be so difficult for artists to create what they love - especially in a society that believes artists should work for free - so if Silicon Heart interests you and you're in the mood to support an independent project, head on over to their kickstarter!

Find out more about Sam and Kat here and here!

Mini Reviews | Aliens, Vampires and Fairy Tales

Sometimes I have enough to say about a book to warrant a full review, and other times I don't but I still want to share my thoughts somehow. I've been reading a lot of graphic novels recently, and while I've enjoyed the majority of them I haven't found much to say individually about all of the ones I've read. So today I'm going to do three mini-reviews for three graphic novels I've recently read!

Copperhead, Vol.1: A New Sheriff in Town by Jay Faerber, Scott Godlewski and Ron Riley

I knew absolutely nothing about this graphic novel until it was recommended to me on Amazon, described as a story about a single mother who moves her and her son to a new planet to work as a sheriff there and deal with everything from alien hillbillies to a local massacre. I really enjoyed it; it was a lot of fun, I liked the art style and I liked the world. If you're a fan of aliens and cowboys, or a fan of female-led sci-fi, then I'd recommend checking this one out. I'm hoping there'll be another volume out later this year!

My Rating: 

American Vampire, Vol.2 by Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque and Mateus Santolouco

I read American Vampire, Vol.1 last year after finding it in my local library. Check out my review here!

I wasn't sure if I was going to carry on with the American Vampire series at first, until I realised the fact that it kept popping into my head despite having read the first volume back in October had to be a sign that it was time to track down Volume 2. Sadly Volume 1 was the only one my library had, so I used trusty old Abebooks and found a couple of secondhand copies of Volume 2 and Volume 3 in really good condition. I really enjoyed being back in the world of American Vampire; it's easy for me to get bored by vampires, but I think Scott Snyder's created something really different with this series, and that's special. I'm definitely going to be continuing with this one.

My Rating: 

Fables, Vol.1: Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham, Lan Medina, Steve Leialoha, Craig Hamilton and James Jean

Unfortunately I didn't like this very much, but considering the reviews I'd seen I didn't expect to, which was the main reason I found myself a secondhand copy rather than spending a bunch of money on a shiny new one. I just wanted to see what it was like for myself. I love Bigby Wolf - I have a big crush on him in The Wolf Among Us - but I didn't enjoy any of the characters in the graphic novel as much I did in the game. It almost felt as though Willingham was playing paint by numbers with fairy tale characters; he made sure they were all there, but he didn't really take the time to make any of them three-dimensional. I didn't hate it, but I didn't like it either. I just felt kind of 'meh' about the whole thing. Needless to say I won't be carrying on with this series, because judging by the reviews it only continues to get worse...

My Rating: 

Have you read any of these? What are your thoughts?

Review | Rat Queens, Vol.1: Sass and Sorcery by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch

Rat Queens, Vol.1: Sass and Sorcery

by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch

My Rating: 

Who are the Rat Queens? 

A pack of booze-guzzling, death-dealing battle maidens-for-hire, and they're in the business of killing all god's creatures for profit. 

It's also a darkly comedic sass-and-sorcery series starring Hannah the Rockabilly Elven Mage, Violet the Hipster Dwarven Fighter, Dee the Atheist Human Cleric and Betty the Hippy Smidgen Thief. This modern spin on an old school genre is a violent monster-killing epic that is like Buffy meets Tank Girl in a Lord of the Rings world on crack! 

If you're into high fantasy, innuendo, swearing and girl power, then you need to get your hands on a copy of this book.

Rat Queens is a graphic novel series which follows friends Hannah, Violet, Dee Dee and Betty on their escapades. The four ladies are essentially bounty hunters; they go on quests to vanquish evil and kill stuff for a living, and they're pretty good at what they do. In the first volume, however, they begin to realise that they might be causing more harm than good, particularly when it becomes clear that someone is out to kill them.

This volume is so much fun. I laughed out loud more than once, and even when I wasn't laughing I was grinning inanely. By the end of this volume we're left with a lot of questions about these girls, about how they met and what their lives were like before they were the Rat Queens, but there was still plenty to suggest a wider story and a wider world, and to tantalise our tastebuds until the next volume.

I loved the friendship between the four girls and how real they are. Sure three of them aren't human, but none of them felt like stereotypical female fantasy characters, or even stereotypical female characters in general; these women aren't the product of a teenage boy's wet dream inducing fantasies, but well thought-out protagonists who piss all over the idea of the traditional fantasy heroine.

In terms of high fantasy this series feels more World of Warcraft than Lord of the Rings, so if you like your high fantasy quite serious it probably isn't for you, but if you're a fan of writers like Mira Grant and Tanya Huff, or if you're a fan of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples' Saga, then you'll love this series!

I can't recommend it more!