parks@kpno.UUCP (04/05/84)
(I am superstitious, and don't believe this bug is fixed yet)
I was at NorWesCon in Seattle recently (March 24,25) and got a chance to
talk to Phil Foglio, and the rest of the crew on the "Myth Adventures"
comic. (That's why they were in Seattle, to debut the book). It's really
very good. The comic is *extremely* faithful to the book, but that's
to be expected with Robert Asprin working on the script. It is planned to
come out four times a year, rather than three as Elfquest does.
Phil's style is (as he himself describes it) "cartoony", but it does not
detract from the book, it adds to it. Aside from E-Man, I can't really think
of anything else out there that uses cartoon drawings. It's a shame, because
the style is so well suited for comical stories (as opposed to comic stories).
The current plan is to do the story of each book in about six comic issues.
There are currently four Myth books out, and Asprin is under contract to
Starblaze books to produce another two. That could keep us in comics for
at least nine years.
In related news, Phil is going to stop doing his "What's New" column for the
Dragon magazine. Sometime this summer, though, he will reprint the entire
series in book form, along with a final strip. As he put it, "I've been
leading readers on for three years now with this gag. I feel I owe it to
them." For those of you who are unaware, the gag has been the infamous
"Sex and D&D" story which has been (until now) eternally postponed.
Finally, for D'arc Tangent. The magazine will certainly not die for lack
of interest. While Foglio was showing off the brand-new Myth Adventures
comic, at least a third of the questions had to do with the fate of D'arc
Tangent. I (and a horde of others) asked him what was going on.
As has been previously reported, he and Freff are through. The last page
of D'arc Tangent is apparently very close to the truth, because (Foglio says)
Freff was concerned with producing fine art rather than meeting deadlines.
Foglio was the other way around. I was impressed, though, that Phil really
didn't say anything nasty about Freff. You could tell he had some
resentment over the whole affair, but all he would say about Freff was that
they had had "differences".
There was a rumor some time ago that each of them might do a version of
D'arc Tangent. Foglio says there is no truth to this. The lawyers are
currently deciding who will get ownership (Foglio wants it a lot).
*IF* Foglio gets it, he probably won't be able to do anything with it
before October or November, due to other projects in the works (see above).
Also, who the publisher would be is unknown. Richard Pini was asked if
WaRP would be interested in picking it up, but he said that things were
still too uncertain to comment on.
Well, that's it for my crop of rumors. Is Alice Bentley out there?
She said that she had seen pages of D'arc Tangent 2 (!!?) Are they both
working on it, or what? Any word from Freff? Does he want it as much
as Foglio? And what about Naomi?
Floating along in my ivory tower,
Jay Parks
(decvax!hao!ihnp4!seismo)!kpno!parks :uucp
Kitt Peak National Observatory :U.S. Snail
950 N. Cherry, Tucson, AZ 85726