Dragon Con 1993 - Valiant Presentation

[Bradley Keith Whiteside]

Dragon Con 1993 - Valiant Presentation

The guys from Valiant that showed up for the panel were:
Don Perlin, Kevin Van Hook, Jon Hartz, and Paul Fairchild.

They first showed slides of different past Gold Logo book winners and
many of these were quite amusing, like the baby that had Valiant star
on his diapers. Most of these slides are from stuff seen in the
back of Valiant books in the Valiant Bulletin Board.

Jon Hartz went on to explain how they were still a small company that
couldn't make as many public appearances around the country since their
talent pool is still small and if they did take time out to do them, the
books would be late. So to compensate for that, the Valiant art tour
was created. This is original painted and b/w art that travels all over
the country and shown at different comic shops.

Valiant still hand-paints their books, rather than computer paint the books.

Hartz also alluded to surprise in Secret Weapons #2. I think it'll be the
re-appearance of Erica Pierce in the Valiant universe since Unity.
He also discussed the upcoming Dr. Mirage book by Bob Layton and Bernard
Chang. (I saw the ashcan at the booth and they artwork looks great.)
Hartz also thinks Shadowman is the best written book done by Valiant,
a notion that I agree with myself.

The Valiant Reader will be $0.75 and will be out soon. A good "Soap Opera
Digest" for the new Valiant reader.

Deathmate Yellow should ship in the week of July 27 and Blue should ship
in the week of August 14. Those of course are the Valiant-ly produced
books. Deathmate Black (Homage Studios) is slated to ship in the week
of August 27 and no telling when Red will ship since it's being done by
good ol' 501 and his Extreme Studios (bwah-hahahaha). Anyone wanna take
bets on when this one will ship? This year or next?
BTW, the Deathmate Prologue was a mini-nightmare for Valiant to get
finished since working with Image is like working with 2-3 different comic
companies.

Yvel Guichet will be doing 2 issues of HARDCorps until he has to go back to
school. He's got 2 more years of schooling to do at the Pratt Art
Institute in New York. I saw the ashcans and they look great. BTW the
ashcans I saw at the Valiant booth were full sized b/w version of the
artwork slated to go into the books.

Rai TPB will be out in September, it'll reprint Rai 0-4 and include a Rai 0
Companion book #1, Jon Hartz has plans to release many Rai 0 companion
books, thus the numbering system. These Rai 0 companion books will fill
in gaps of scenes shown in Rai 0. Also don't take anything for granted
in Rai 0 unless you actually see it in a panel. Off-panel shots that make
you assume things may not be the case, so "don't assume anything!"

In HARDCorps 13, some dies, and they will stay dead! This is Valiant: Where
the dead stay dead!

The first comics with Valiant Vision (a full-color 3-D innovtion) will be
Solar 29. You'll need the special Valiant vision glasses to get the full
3-D effect of Valiant Vision, but you won't need the glasses if you only
want to read the story. The special glasses will be included in a poly-
bag that has an 8-page Neal Adams cover and interior artwork, and also
a Joe Quesada poster will be included. This package will cost $2.95.
The comics with Valiant Vision will cost the same as normal. I hope
reading the books with Valiant Vision will be possible. The lettering
on the Solar 29 cover they had hangin on the wall was a bit blurry IMO
when viewing through the glasses.

Big news: Joe Quesada will be the artist for the new Ninjak book that's
slated for a November release. Quesada is done with X-Factor and will
be committed to to doing Ninjak for Valiant. Mark Moretti will do the
writing and Jimmy Palmiotta will be inking (Yay!)

Gimmick covers? Yes or No? The preliminary votes show people don't mind
a special cover if it's a special event, and not over-done like Marvel
does it. The room consensus was the same. I guess X-O #0 didn't hurt
the "pro" vote for the gimmick covers.

Ivar, Time Walker will be a new book coming out next February. Mike Leeke
is doing the art and Jon Hartz is doing the story, while Bob Layton will
dialogue the book. Hartz first came up with Ivar and is excited about
Time Walker. Supposedly Ivar will be a very important character in the
Valiant universe (he'll show up in the darndest places!)

There are no more brothers of Aram, Gilad, and Ivar introduced in the
Valiant universe.

The Randy Cartier as X-O She-Devil of War storyline won't last too long.
It's a story to demonstrate that not just anyone can wear the X-O armor
and that all the baggage a 20th century person carries while wearing
the armor makes for a bad candidate.

Questions and observations taken from the floor:

The tight continuity of Valiant was achieved by watching the mistakes of
DC and Marvel and learning from them.

Dates in Valiant comics: Now it's just writer's preference whether or not
it shows up in a story.

There are plans for 16-18 total Valiant titles, anymore than that, and
you run into continuity problems.

Yearbooks: Are like the annuals of silver-age books, where special types
of stories can be told. They should signify special and important
events. They also allow the super-star writers and artists who can't
commit to a monthly book to do something with the Valiant characters.
No deadlines are given to the creators of yearbooks.
The Eternal Warrior Yearbook is coming out in Septmeber. I saw the
ashcans for this one, and the art looks very Brian Bolland-like, very
clean realistic renderings. This will be done by an Australian duo
whose names escape me right at this moment.
The Magnus Yearbook will be done by Mike Baron and Paul Smith.
There are plans for an X-O Yearbook.

Bloodshot #0 will be coming out in the near future. Dick Diordano will
be inking the book!

The Magnus/Nexus crossover is looking like it's coming together. I got to
see the first 20 pages done by Steve Rude at his table. Looks nice and
it's Pre-Magnus #0 Magnus. Mike Baron is writing it.

Anymore Western characters to make it into the Valiant universe? Not likely.

There are plans for the Valiant Era Collection TPB which will reprint the
hard to buy pre-Unity issues like Magnus 12, etc.

The Solar Alpha and Omega TPB will be out sooner or later, BWS wants to
do something special with the TPB to be included in the book. So when
that can be worked out (plus maybe a cover enhancement of some type)
the TPB will see print.

Well, that's all that went on at the Valiant presentaion at Dragon Con.
Hope you enjoyed it as I did.

--
Patman
"--Cause your ass belongs to ME." Hardware #4
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332