Wednesday, February 21, 2007

THE BOOK


From Inside, the graphic novel, was published in 1994 by Kitchen Sink Press. The book was originally contracted with Tundra, but by the time it was printed Tundra had been purchased by Kitchen Sink Press.

Tundra was a great comic book publishing company founded by Kevin Eastman (Heavy Metal Magazine, Melting Pot, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). Kevin's idea was to create a place where comic book artists would be given complete control over their books. This was the mid-90's. Creator-owned books weren't a new idea by then, but Tundra made it official company policy with the Creator's Bill of Rights. Tundra was uniquely committed to putting out books that were challenging (translation: low on Commercial Potential, high on Quality). Well, maybe that's not true about commercial potential since they published The Crow and a number of other very popular books... Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's From Hell, Mike Allred's Madman, Jim Goodring's Frank, a Sketchbook series, work by Kent Williams, Dave McKean, Rick Veitch, Steve Bissette, Neil Gaiman, George Pratt, Scott McCloud, Bill Sienkiewicz, Mark Martin... My friend James O'Barr and I worked together at Tundra - with The Crow and From Inside, and we edited Bone Saw, a comics & fiction anthology.

From Inside took 2 years to illustrate. 366 pages, full color. The first time I saw a printed book was when I was on the set of The Crow movie in North Carolina. Someone from Tundra came to the set with boxes and boxes of new Tundra books... including a box of freshly-printed From Insides. I remember that day because projects that take years to complete are always exciting to see come to an end (it's never truly over until you hold the finished thing in your hands).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi there,
i fondly remember from inside.
like your brilliant series ashes, it stands for me for a creative peak in the independent comic art of the nineties.
it`s amazing to see that there will be animated version of it. the trailer looks great.

good luck and best wishes
b.