James Rasmussen: July 2009 Archives

During Anime Expo '09 weekend I ran into Udon Managing Editor Matt Moylan. I got the chance to interview Matt about the barrage of Capcom comics Udon is pumping out this year, possible future project details, and what we can expect from Udon at Comic-Con 2009.

Both comic book and video game fans should be pleased with the results.

Modern Mythology: So Matt, could you tell us a little bit about your role at UDON, and what Capcom-Comics projects are currently being worked on?

Matt Moylan: My title at UDON is Managing Editor, and I generally oversee production on all UDON's publishing projects. This means making sure stories and artwork gets done on time, communicating with our distributors and printers, helping guide the direction of our comics, and many other tasks. It's a lot of work but also very rewarding!

Currently we have a lot of Capcom projects going! There's our comic book line where we have 3 different series going Street Fighter II Turbo, Street Fighter IV, and Street Fighter Legends. Our Capcom artbook line is also growing a lot this fall as we add new books for Darkstalkers, Street Fighter, Mega Man, Phoenix Wright, and more. We've also got some new Capcom manga series beginning in January, which will be announced soon.

Modern Mythology: Just this week you released news about Street Fighter 3 back stories, and a full blown comic  to be released in 2010. Could you tell us what inspired the team to do a SF3 story, and how long its been in development?

Matt Moylan: We've wanted to do Street Fighter 3 stories for a while, and fans ask about it a lot too. We've been more seriously planning it for at least 2 years. There are a lot of great and unique characters in SF3, and we can't wait have them join our regular Street Fighter cast. But we won't just be added the new characters, but also showing what classic SF characters might be like in the SF3 era. So lots of fun stuff is going to be going down in this series.

Modern Mythology: A couple months ago you said that UDON was determining the new character(s) for the SF Legends series. Any new developments?

Matt Moylan: We're not ready to announce it yet, but we have decided who will be the focus of the next Legends series. I can say it's once of series artist Omar Dogan's favorite characters!

Modern Mythology: Final Fight is a new license you guys have obtained, with the crew showing up in the Turbo main story and also back stories. When will we see the spin-off comic hit stores?

Matt Moylan: Fan response about the Final Fight stories has been huge! We get emails requesting more Final Fight stories pretty much every day now. So it's definitely in the works. We can't do everything at once though, so the earliest you would see a Final Fight series is probably spring/summer 2010.

Modern Mythology: Checking out the new promo ads for MvC2 with the UDON artwork has made fans want a back story or a mini series for MvC2. Is this artwork a hint at a possible MvC2 project? Is there any possibility of all three companies Capcom, UDON, and Marvel coming together to produce such a project?


Matt Moylan: The MvC2 art was created specifically to promote the re-release of the game. No crossover comics are in the works at the moment, but if fans want to see a comic project like that they should let UDON, Capcom, and especially Marvel know!

Modern Mythology: Capcom recently announced that Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom is coming over to the states. You guys have taken on current games like Street Fighter 4, so would a Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom comic be too much to ask for?

Matt Moylan: Well, it would be pretty fun to tackle the Tatsunoko characters. Many of the UDON crew are big Tatsunoko fans, especially UDON Chief Erik Ko. The licensing rights on a Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom would be complex but not impossible. Perhaps it's best to see how American audiences accept the game first before thinking about comics.

Modern Mythology: UDON is translating 2 Mega Man artbooks for the U.S. soon, and you guys said two months ago in the Street Fighter Magazine interview that you are all huge fans of the Mega Man franchise. Can we expect news relating to a possible Mega Man comic to coincide with the releases of the artbooks?

Matt Moylan: Our first translated Mega Man art book was Mega Man Zero: Official Complete Works, which has been a fairly decent seller for us. Now we're doing the two new art books you mentioned for classic Mega Man, and Mega Man X, which is seems like fans are really excited about.

Next on our Mega Man list is - manga! We'll be translating a couple Mega Man manga series that fans have been asking for for a long time. If the manga does well, it could signal that it's time to try some original comics. So, hopefully all Mega fans who want new comics will run out and buy the artbooks and manga first. ;)

Modern Mythology: A few years ago at Comic-Con I remember getting Omar Dogan's limited print Chun-Li. Do you guys have anything rare or limited set-up for this years Comic-Con? What can we expect from your booth?

Matt Moylan: This year we've got all our main Street Fighter artists at the booth - Omar Dogan, Long Vo, Joe Ng, and Chamba - and they'll all be doing sketches, signing books, and selling Street Fighter & Darkstalkers prints.

We're also selling the con-exclusive Darkstalkers Tribute hardcover at SDCC. This 300page book features artists from all over the world celebrating the 15th anniversary of Darkstalkers with all new art pieces. Big names include Adam Hughes, J.Scott Campbell, Jo Chen, Mark Brooks, Yasuhiro Nightow and of course, the whole UDON crew! This book turned out even better than last year's Street Fighter Tribute, so fans will not be disappointed!

Modern Mythology: This year in October Long Beach will host the first ever Long Beach Comic-Con. What are your thoughts on the Con, and are you guys going to attend? If so, then are you planning anything special for the inaugural event?

Matt Moylan: Seems like the show has signed up some fun guests! We won't be attending this year, but we do try to pay attention to new shows to see if we might want to attend in the future. So maybe next year!

All photos courtesy of Udon Entertainment
www.udonentertainment.com

Gainax, the company responsible for Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Neon Genesis Evengelion, held a focus panel after their American debut of the first Gurren Lagann movie where they took audience questions and feedback from the movie, and where they also made a surprise announcement for a new series they are currently working on with Mobile Suit Gundam 00 director Seiji Mizushima and video game company Square-Enix. Seiji Mizushima made a surprise guest appearance at Gainax's panel for the debut of the trailer. Fans cheered at the thought of two of the industry's best giant robot minds possibly colliding for one amazing scifi project.

Instead, the audience found out that the equation of: Gundam plus Gurren Lagann equals cute little girls that look something like the Powderpuff Girls, combining forces to destroy over-sized stuft pandas.

The animation looks top-notch as expected from Gainax, and director Mizushima  commented that with this project he wanted to make an anime that appealed to a wider audience than previous shows.

At first look this trailer might not be very impressive, but it is just a sneak-peek into what the teams are collaborating on. They did not give a release date at the panel, and I couldn't understand what the title of the anime was since it was in Japanese. So little is still known about this project, but with three dominant figures in the industry collaborating on it, the show is definitely on my list to check out.

Update:  After consulting a friend who could read the Kanji, I found out that the show is called Hanamaru Kindergarten, and the anime will be an adaptation from Square-Enix's slice-of-life comedy manga series.