Post by hopeful on Dec 26, 2007 20:17:35 GMT -5
"Proof on paper that Bigfoot exists
Calgary cartoonist breaks into comic-book industry with unusual superheroes influenced by The X-Files
Heath McCoy, Calgary Herald; CanWest News Service
Published: 2:50 am
CALGARY - Calgary cartoonist Riley Rossmo doesn't make any bones about it -- his new comic book, Proof, which hit stores this week, was majorly influenced by The X-Files.
That popular '90s TV series featured a pair of FBI agents who delved into the world of supernatural monsters and paranormal occurrences. As in The X-Files, Proof also features a male and female FBI team on the trail of such fearsome beasties as a chupacabra (a blood-sucking creature) and the Golem (a hulking beast from Jewish folklore). But the twist -- which makes Proof more than an X-Files knockoff -- is that rather than a smouldering Fox Mulder in the male role, Proof features a hairy sasquatch -- Bigfoot himself.
So that would make Proof The X-Files meets -- well, what? "Harry and the Hendersons," says Rossmo at first, citing the 1987 comedy in which Bigfoot comes to live with an all-American family.
No, the 27-year-old artist is not quite satisfied with that comparison. "Maybe The Pink Panther," he offers, because his version of Bigfoot is a gentleman type bordering on arrogance, a la Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau character.
Scratch that. This Bigfoot is not a bumbler like Clouseau.
Then Rossmo finds a comparison that works.
"Tarzan!" he says. Specifically, the Tarzan seen in the 1984 flick Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, which focused on the boy who is lost in the African jungle and raised by a family of apes trying to integrate himself back into civilization as a grown man.
"(Bigfoot) is a wild man, right? He's a primate, and here he's become civilized," Rossmo says. "He's lived for hundreds of years so we can always tell back stories about how he spent some time in the circus, and that's how he got used to being around people. Then somebody bought him from the circus and set him loose and he decided to live (among humans)." Rossmo is a laid-back sort, bordering on shy, but his excitement at telling these weird stories that have been pent up in his head and in his pen for so long is palpable.
With his arms adorned with tattoos of his art, including a dragon and a picture of a comic-style heroine, based on his wife, Rossmo has dreamed of being in the comic book business since he was a kid in Saskatoon. His family struggled financially and so, while most comic-loving kids would buy issues hot off the stands each week, usually at around $4 a pop, Rossmo would pick through the bins at the discount store behind his house.
"I could buy six comics for a dollar," he fondly remembers. "Every weekend, my dad would give me $2 and I could get a stack of comics, whatever people didn't want at the time ... ."
"I'd save up five bucks and hit garage sales and come home with a box."
By the time he was 17, Rossmo was sending submissions of his own art to the two giants of the comic industry, Marvel and DC.
"They were terrible, but I always thought, 'This is gonna be the one. They're gonna like this one,' " he says. Instead, he accumulated a stack of rejection letters.
Eventually Rossmo's passion brought him to Calgary, where he graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design. Soon, he began making a living doing illustrations for such publications as Avenue, Calgary Inc., WestJet Magazine and Scratch, a hip-hop magazine out of the U.S.
In 2005, Rossmo met writer Alex Grecian, who hails from Topeka, Kansas, at a San Diego comic convention. Grecian is Rossmo's collaborator and the co-creator of Proof. The two hit it off and within a year they had published the graphic novel Seven Sons, based on a Chinese folk legend, through an independent comic company in California.
But Proof is their first crack at the big time. The series is being released by Image Comics, generally regarded as the third-largest superhero comic book publisher in the U.S., behind Marvel and DC. Image is the publishing house that spawned Spawn, the mega-popular creation of former Calgarian Todd McFarlane.
Rossmo admits he'd still like to do work for Marvel and DC someday. He can't deny the thought of working on an issue of Batman or Daredevil fills his inner fan with joy. But "Proof's so special to me and we have a lot of stories to tell," he says. "To create your own stuff is more magical somehow.""
© The Edmonton Journal 2007
www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/culture/story.html?id=ebf51ce9-4fb8-4b1f-ae7e-191e053eac28&k=29792
Special thanks to Tugboatwa at Bigfoot Forums!
www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?showtopic=20761&hl=
Calgary cartoonist breaks into comic-book industry with unusual superheroes influenced by The X-Files
Heath McCoy, Calgary Herald; CanWest News Service
Published: 2:50 am
CALGARY - Calgary cartoonist Riley Rossmo doesn't make any bones about it -- his new comic book, Proof, which hit stores this week, was majorly influenced by The X-Files.
That popular '90s TV series featured a pair of FBI agents who delved into the world of supernatural monsters and paranormal occurrences. As in The X-Files, Proof also features a male and female FBI team on the trail of such fearsome beasties as a chupacabra (a blood-sucking creature) and the Golem (a hulking beast from Jewish folklore). But the twist -- which makes Proof more than an X-Files knockoff -- is that rather than a smouldering Fox Mulder in the male role, Proof features a hairy sasquatch -- Bigfoot himself.
So that would make Proof The X-Files meets -- well, what? "Harry and the Hendersons," says Rossmo at first, citing the 1987 comedy in which Bigfoot comes to live with an all-American family.
No, the 27-year-old artist is not quite satisfied with that comparison. "Maybe The Pink Panther," he offers, because his version of Bigfoot is a gentleman type bordering on arrogance, a la Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau character.
Scratch that. This Bigfoot is not a bumbler like Clouseau.
Then Rossmo finds a comparison that works.
"Tarzan!" he says. Specifically, the Tarzan seen in the 1984 flick Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, which focused on the boy who is lost in the African jungle and raised by a family of apes trying to integrate himself back into civilization as a grown man.
"(Bigfoot) is a wild man, right? He's a primate, and here he's become civilized," Rossmo says. "He's lived for hundreds of years so we can always tell back stories about how he spent some time in the circus, and that's how he got used to being around people. Then somebody bought him from the circus and set him loose and he decided to live (among humans)." Rossmo is a laid-back sort, bordering on shy, but his excitement at telling these weird stories that have been pent up in his head and in his pen for so long is palpable.
With his arms adorned with tattoos of his art, including a dragon and a picture of a comic-style heroine, based on his wife, Rossmo has dreamed of being in the comic book business since he was a kid in Saskatoon. His family struggled financially and so, while most comic-loving kids would buy issues hot off the stands each week, usually at around $4 a pop, Rossmo would pick through the bins at the discount store behind his house.
"I could buy six comics for a dollar," he fondly remembers. "Every weekend, my dad would give me $2 and I could get a stack of comics, whatever people didn't want at the time ... ."
"I'd save up five bucks and hit garage sales and come home with a box."
By the time he was 17, Rossmo was sending submissions of his own art to the two giants of the comic industry, Marvel and DC.
"They were terrible, but I always thought, 'This is gonna be the one. They're gonna like this one,' " he says. Instead, he accumulated a stack of rejection letters.
Eventually Rossmo's passion brought him to Calgary, where he graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design. Soon, he began making a living doing illustrations for such publications as Avenue, Calgary Inc., WestJet Magazine and Scratch, a hip-hop magazine out of the U.S.
In 2005, Rossmo met writer Alex Grecian, who hails from Topeka, Kansas, at a San Diego comic convention. Grecian is Rossmo's collaborator and the co-creator of Proof. The two hit it off and within a year they had published the graphic novel Seven Sons, based on a Chinese folk legend, through an independent comic company in California.
But Proof is their first crack at the big time. The series is being released by Image Comics, generally regarded as the third-largest superhero comic book publisher in the U.S., behind Marvel and DC. Image is the publishing house that spawned Spawn, the mega-popular creation of former Calgarian Todd McFarlane.
Rossmo admits he'd still like to do work for Marvel and DC someday. He can't deny the thought of working on an issue of Batman or Daredevil fills his inner fan with joy. But "Proof's so special to me and we have a lot of stories to tell," he says. "To create your own stuff is more magical somehow.""
© The Edmonton Journal 2007
www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/culture/story.html?id=ebf51ce9-4fb8-4b1f-ae7e-191e053eac28&k=29792
Special thanks to Tugboatwa at Bigfoot Forums!
www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?showtopic=20761&hl=