In an exclusive interview with Major Spoilers, Zenescope’s Mr. President (Joe Brusha) gives Victoria all the details on the upcoming highly anticipated series, “Neverland”. What can we expect from this twisted version of Peter Pan? Read on to find out!
Victoria: Can you give our readers some information about this new mini series such as who will be writing it, how many issues it will be and who will provide the interior art?
Joe: It’s a fairly dark re-imagining of Peter Pan. Most of the characters from the original story appear in the series they’ve just been given the Grimm Fairy Tales make over. The series will be eight issues including the #0 preview. I’m writing it and right now Vic Durichio is slated to do the interiors and Jason Embury will be providing the colors.
Victoria: What made you decide to make J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan the next fairy tale to tackle?
Joe: Neverland was actually one of the first story lines that I came up with for the Grimm universe. We just haven’t been able to fit it into our publishing schedule until now. Early on when I was thinking about stories to adapt Peter Pan was one of the first ones that jumped out at me. Mainly because I was always more of a fan of Hook than of Peter Pan and I thought it would be fun to play with that role reversal.
Victoria: From a writer’s point of view, what’s it like to take these famous fairy tales and essentially rewrite them?
Joe: I’m really enjoying re-inventing these classic stories and characters. Developing new mythologies and story lines around the original material is a lot of fun and its great taking these classic stories that we all heard as children and giving them an update for a more mature audience.
Victoria: I remember when the Return to Wonderland series was announced, I posted the information along with the cover to issue #0 on an Alice in Wonderland online community. I received a lot of hate for that; apparently some Lewis Carroll fans were offended and were not pleased. Have you ever experienced any backlash for rewriting fairy tales? And on that note, what about positive responses?
Joe: We receive a lot of feedback, both good and bad for re-inventing classic stories. Luckily, most of the response we get is positive. But the old adage I’d definitely say is true, (you just can’t please everyone). And I don’t think you should try to. Even negative responses mean people are at least looking at our books and that’s better than getting no response at all.
Victoria: Judging by the summary released to the press, it appears that Peter is in fact the villain of this story and Captain Hook is the hero. Why the role reversal?
Joe: As I said before I was never a big fan of Peter Pan himself. I always found myself rooting for Hook and hoping he would win. I mean he was just a pirate trying to do his job and I kind of felt sorry for him. He keeps being thwarted by this spoiled brat who doesn’t want to grow up and he has this obsessive crocodile following him all around trying to eat him all the time.
Victoria: What other familiar characters can we expect to see other than Peter and Hook?
Joe: Almost all of the characters from the original story appear here. Wendy, Tinkerbell, the Lost Boys, and of course the Croc. Of course they only bear a slight resemblance to the characters from Barrie’s story.
Victoria: You introduced many original characters in your Wonderland series (such as Calie Liddle and Charles Dodgson). Will you be adding your own characters to the Peter Pan mythology?
Joe: There are several new characters in the series. The hero, Jonathon Cross has some things in common with Hook but he is essentially a new character. Most of the other original characters only play minor parts in the story.
Victoria: David Finch will be providing the cover for issue #1. What other cover artists do you have lined up?
Joe: Ebas did the cover for issue #0 and he is also doing an exclusive for issue #2. Of course we had to put Al Rio on a cover and he is doing the regular version for issue #2 and Franchesco Bufano did the alternate cover to #1. We’re trying to get J. Scott Campbell to do a cover but we have to wait and see if his schedule opens up.
My thanks and graditude to Mr. Brusha and Raven Gregory. Be sure to visit Zenescope’s official website: www.zenescope.com
4 Comments
This is going to such a Captain Hook fanservice! I can’t wait. Hook looks awesome in that shot too! I hope that pixie gets gutted good. >:)
I have never bought a Zenoscope title before, but after hearing Victoria raving about the Wonderland series I have put this title on my pull list. I have always loved the art, but good story is what sells a book for me and it sounds like this story is going to be top notch.
Thank you Victoria!
Not always a fan of all of their tales but you really should check out Return to Wonderland. IT’s THAT GOOD. It’s also kind of a gateway comic to get you into the rest of the titles.
@ morpheus: Thanks for your kind words! I think you would enjoy the Wonderland series. Grimm Fairy Tales can be really hit or miss but Wonderland is SOLID story telling and art work.