Stop the Presses! GWP Director of Communications, Robert J. Sodaro was recently interviewed by Mike Gelbwasser, a columnist who writes about comicbooks for the Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA. In this interview he spoke about his career in comics, what he’s been up to, and the state of the industry itself.

Committed to the FEARS within!

The third issue of Guild Works Productions’ critically acclaimed horror anthology, Psychosis!, is more about the psychological aspects of what makes us afraid, than of the incident itself.

Like the ones that preceded it, this issue promises some spine-breaking suspense. Psychosis! #3 ships with a special flip cover painted by Ed Traquino and a flip-cover by Shawnti Therrien. Priced at $5.95 for 56 pulse-pounding pages of chills and thrills. Psychosis! is a mature readers title, and is appropriately labeled on each cover.

The stories this time out include; Committed by Gabriel Moore-Topazio and art by Ven Yann, the return of Bob Sodaro’s Wülf Girlz in How Deep in the Wood with art by Matt C. Ryan. Then there is the dust-bowel western, Already Lost, by Ed Pereira and Ed Traquino; The Adversary, by James Webb; and a crime-noir horror, Fair Exchange, by David MacNiven and Rich Terdoslavich; and on the flip-side of this book is Shawnti Therrien’s on-going vampire story, Meth: A Reason to Live.

In glorious black and white, Psychosis! is a collection of horrors where the main theme is an edgy, modern-day, relevant look at the fears of the 21st Century. The contributors to Psychosis! #3 hail from varied backgrounds and are a true mix of established comicbook professionals and enthusiastic, younger talent intent on cutting their teeth with powerful themes.

GWP’s titles are not only sold through local area comic shops, like Midtown Comics in NYC, but are available over the web directly from GWP for direct solicitation. With an expanding national network of creators, and GWP as a means to publish them, we are ready to face the challenges of an ever-changing marketplace.

For more information or additional background material about GWP Please contact Robert J. Sodaro, Director of Communications.

# # #

GWP will be at the NY Comic Con, April 18–20, 2008. The show is located at the Jacob Javits Center (655 West 34th Street — New York, NY 10001).

Steve Gerber (1947 – 2008)

by mark mazz

Howard the Duck #1 What I find myself thinking of him can not be written simply. He was the prototype writer of social activism in comics. His stories had heart and soul transcending the medium of four-colors and talking to theme and social consequence. He breathed life into stale 1970s caricatures and imbued them with a realism that wasn’t defined before him. Sure, there were good writers before his time, but few ever reached the dynamic he painted on his canvas of heroic action. Steve found justifications for his characters, he found a light within his primary, secondary and even background characters.

Steve created living, and breathing towns which peeked the imaginations of millions. How else could he have a 6-foot 8" pile of muck create a statement of political and social action? Man-Thing was his open forum into discussions of what was wrong in the America of the 1970s, and with no surprise there was an enormous amount to discuss. Steve never rested for a minute. He would create entire visions of disaster with his Head-men in the Defenders, his shared trans-gender biology of Aleta and Starhawk in Guardians of the Galaxy, and the anti-hero feed-up with a universe of fools in Fool-Killer. He’d blast the destruction of the wet-lands in Man-Thing and give Howard The Duck the social platform of a third party candidate in the 1980 presidential election. That was Steve Gerber!

Steve was a wonder to behold. I never met him, but I do feel like I knew the man intensely. His writing burned with social themes. He crafted stories that had consequence and progressed his characters. Even his re-telling of the Superman mythos through the characters of Omega the Unknown was a defining moment. Steve couldn’t write any other way, and his craft was stunning, but the themes. Oh my God, the themes of his work stole the show. If anyone paved the way for Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miler, and Mark Millar...it was Steve Gerber. He created new vehicles for his themes almost without effort, and each of his concepts were stunning achievements . So very many ideas, and so intense in their personas. Let's just look at a list of them...

Man-Thing
Morbius
Shanna the She-Devil
The Defenders
Son of Satan
Guardians of the Galaxy
Howard the Duck
Omega the Unknown
The Phantom Zone
Void Indigo
Destroyer Duck
Stewart the Rat
Fool-Killer
Sludge
A. Bizarro
Nevada
Hard Time
Countdown to Mystery: Doctor Fate

Steve never lost a story-beat. he never had a dry spell and the themes kept expanding. (Hard Time’s theme was a forerunner to the hit TV show Prison Break). The thought of a high school teenager convicted of a mass school shooting as his lead character was stunning. The back-stories of the convicts were so riveting that it was very hard to ever put this book down. Sure, it wasn’t Doctor Doom’s latest plot to destroy the world, but Steve would have gotten into Doom’s broken personality and his hatred and love of his parents. Steve’s master-craft was knowing who his characters were and then throwing them into reality completely. He’d have the U.N. Security Council prosecute untenable sanctions against Doom’s people and show what that would do to the gypsies living on the street.

I‘m so incredibly saddened for the loss of Steve Gerber. Even at 60 he had the vigor and verve of a 20-something writer. Steve’s intelligence will be missed and his collection of four-color actors will set a standard for many generations to come.

Rest in Peace, Steve Gerber. We knew you well.

—mark mazz

GWP Director of Communication in the News!

If you happen to be following what has been going on in the world of mainstream comics over the past several months you probably already know about the global retcon entitled that was recently engineered over at Marvel in the Spider-Man titles by the One More Day/Brand New Day storyline.

If you haven’t — in brief — the 20-year (real-time) marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson-Parker has been dissolved and new life has been restored to Peter’s Aunt May Parker as the result of a Faustian bargain struck between Spider-Man and Mephisto. All of which was discussed in a recent article on Newsday.com.

What has this got to do with us over here at GWP? Well, GWP Director of Communications, and noted Spider-Fan Robert J. Sodaro was quoted extensively as part of the article. Check it out for yourselves.

Way to go Bob!

GWP Goes International (sort of)

That’s right folks, GWP is now (sort of) an International operation. As it turns out, rising star Fabio Araujo Turbay is from Brazil and came to the U.S. to pick up some comicbook contacts. Well, he wound up hooking up with the Comicbook Artists Guild. From there, it was just a short hop, skip, and jump for him to land a story in Psychosis! #2 (Robert J. Sodaro’s Ghost Writer). Well, Fabio, upon returning home to Brazil, promptly — with the approval of Sodaro and GWP Creative Director mark mazz — submitted the story to a Brazilian comicbook entitled IMBROGLIO CAPIXABA.

That book is now published, and available to anyone who can read Portuguese. Congratulations Fabio and Bob. Not quite happy with the way the book turned out, Fabio is talking about re-publishing the story in a new format, along with some of his Brazilian friends. (Maybe now Fabio will form CAG’s first international branch — what do you say Fabio?)

Ed Traquino Becomes Production Manager for GWP

British born artist, Ed Traquino, has accepted the position of Production Manager for Guild Works Productions. Traquino has an immensely diverse background in the London comic art scene, and recently relocated to the States hoping to further pursue his life-long dream of working in the comics industry.

Born in South London in 1973, Traquino has self-published several works, including Terrier & Puppies (2003), The Hollow Flat (2004), Evil Eyes (2005), and his first U.S. publication, Sleazy Does it! (2007).

Traquino carved out a name for himself in the United Kingdom working on such strips as The Destructovore, and I do it 'Cos I Love It. Well-known for his ability to capture mood and dynamic character interplay his work has appeared in various UK publications which include: Bam!, Bingo Bonanza, Dogbreath, and SolarWind. His most recent UK work is a 5-page strip and the cover for Futurequake #11 from Future Quake Press. FutureQuake is a finalist in the 2007 Eagle awards.

His first collaboration in the states is on the King of the Realm, an 8-page strip in Psychosis! #2 alongside writer, Mark Mazz. Mazz, GWP’s creative director had this to say, “Ed brings a style and finesse to his work that’s rarely seen in today’s marketplace. We are truly honored that he has accepted this position and place his expertise as a genuine master storyteller in the highest regard.”

GWP’s president, Keith Murphey had this to add, “Ed has a unique and raw perspective and his visual narrative has an strong edge to it, which is why we know he will bring his quality vision to our line. We are very excited and look forward to seeing more of what he can do!”

For more information about GPW, or Psychosis! please contact:
Robert J. Sodaro, Director of Communications.

Psychosis! #1 is still available!

That’s right funnybook fans! Psychosis! #1 is still on the comicbook stands across this great land of ours. So if your comicbook shop doesn’t carry the comic, tell them that they should and have them contact GWP President, Keith J. Murphey and ask for copies for their shop.



Comics in the News Stop the Presses! GWP Director of Communications, Robert J. Sodaro was recently interviewed by Mike Gelbwasser, a columnist who writes about comicbooks for the Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA. In this interview he spoke about his career in comics, what he’s been up to, and the state of the industry itself. The pictures that horrified America Author David Hajdu has recently written a book entitled The Ten-Cent Plague which deals with the ‘50s horror comics, and Fredric Wertham‘s book, Seduction of the Innocent (we here at GWP had our own comments on this bit of tripe in an editorial written by GWP Director of Communications, Robert J. Sodaro, which appeared in issue #2 of Psychosis! (the text of that editorial can be read here). David Hajdu’s book covers: comics, teen rebellion The horror and crime comics of the ‘40s and ‘50s inflamed authorities A psychiatrist claimed that comics were linked to juvenile delinquency Efforts brought down comics for a time, but the rebellion lives on... Committed to the FEARS within! The third issue of Guild Works Productions’ critically acclaimed horror anthology, Psychosis!, is more about the psychological aspects of what makes us afraid, than of the incident itself. Like the ones that preceded it, this issue promises some spine-breaking suspense. Psychosis! #3 ships with a special flip cover painted by Ed Traquino and a flip-cover by Shawnti Therrien. Priced at $5.95 for 56 pulse-pounding pages of chills and thrills. Psychosis! is a mature readers title, and is appropriately labeled on each cover. The stories this time out include; Committed by Gabriel Moore-Topazio and art by Ven Yann, the return of Bob Sodaro’s Wülf Girlz in How Deep in the Wood with art by Matt C. Ryan. Then there is the dust-bowel western, Already Lost, by Ed Pereira and Ed Traquino; The Adversary, by James Webb; and a crime-noir horror, Fair Exchange, by David MacNiven and Rich Terdoslavich; and on the flip-side of this book is Shawnti Therrien’s on-going vampire story, Meth: A Reason to Live. In glorious black and white, Psychosis! is a collection of horrors where the main theme is an edgy, modern-day, relevant look at the fears of the 21st Century. The contributors to Psychosis! #3 hail from varied backgrounds and are a true mix of established comicbook professionals and enthusiastic, younger talent intent on cutting their teeth with powerful themes. GWP’s titles are not only sold through local area comic shops, like Midtown Comics in NYC, but are available over the web directly from GWP for direct solicitation. With an expanding national network of creators, and GWP as a means to publish them, we are ready to face the challenges of an ever-changing marketplace. For more information or additional background material about GWP Please contact Robert J. Sodaro, Director of Communications. # # # GWP will be at the NY Comic Con, April 18–20, 2008. The show is located at the Jacob Javits Center (655 West 34th Street — New York, NY 10001). Steve Gerber (1947 – 2008) by mark mazz What I find myself thinking of him can not be written simply. He was the prototype writer of social activism in comics. His stories had heart and soul transcending the medium of four-colors and talking to theme and social consequence. He breathed life into stale 1970s caricatures and imbued them with a realism that wasn’t defined before him. Sure, there were good writers before his time, but few ever reached the dynamic he painted on his canvas of heroic action. Steve found justifications for his characters, he found a light within his primary, secondary and even background characters. Steve created living, and breathing towns which peeked the imaginations of millions. How else could he have a 6-foot 8" pile of muck create a statement of political and social action? Man-Thing was his open forum into discussions of what was wrong in the America of the 1970s, and with no surprise there was an enormous amount to discuss. Steve never rested for a minute. He would create entire visions of disaster with his Head-men in the Defenders, his shared trans-gender biology of Aleta and Starhawk in Guardians of the Galaxy, and the anti-hero feed-up with a universe of fools in Fool-Killer. He’d blast the destruction of the wet-lands in Man-Thing and give Howard The Duck the social platform of a third party candidate in the 1980 presidential election. That was Steve Gerber! Steve was a wonder to behold. I never met him, but I do feel like I knew the man intensely. His writing burned with social themes. He crafted stories that had consequence and progressed his characters. Even his re-telling of the Superman mythos through the characters of Omega the Unknown was a defining moment. Steve couldn’t write any other way, and his craft was stunning, but the themes. Oh my God, the themes of his work stole the show. If anyone paved the way for Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miler, and Mark Millar...it was Steve Gerber. He created new vehicles for his themes almost without effort, and each of his concepts were stunning achievements . So very many ideas, and so intense in their personas. Let's just look at a list of them... Man-Thing Morbius Shanna the She-Devil The Defenders Son of Satan Guardians of the Galaxy Howard the Duck Omega the Unknown The Phantom Zone Void Indigo Destroyer Duck Stewart the Rat Fool-Killer Sludge A. Bizarro Nevada Hard Time Countdown to Mystery: Doctor Fate Steve never lost a story-beat. he never had a dry spell and the themes kept expanding. (Hard Time’s theme was a forerunner to the hit TV show Prison Break). The thought of a high school teenager convicted of a mass school shooting as his lead character was stunning. The back-stories of the convicts were so riveting that it was very hard to ever put this book down. Sure, it wasn’t Doctor Doom’s latest plot to destroy the world, but Steve would have gotten into Doom’s broken personality and his hatred and love of his parents. Steve’s master-craft was knowing who his characters were and then throwing them into reality completely. He’d have the U.N. Security Council prosecute untenable sanctions against Doom’s people and show what that would do to the gypsies living on the street. I‘m so incredibly saddened for the loss of Steve Gerber. Even at 60 he had the vigor and verve of a 20-something writer. Steve’s intelligence will be missed and his collection of four-color actors will set a standard for many generations to come. Rest in Peace, Steve Gerber. We knew you well. —mark mazz GWP Director of Communication in the News! If you happen to be following what has been going on in the world of mainstream comics over the past several months you probably already know about the global retcon entitled that was recently engineered over at Marvel in the Spider-Man titles by the One More Day/Brand New Day storyline. If you haven’t — in brief — the 20-year (real-time) marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson-Parker has been dissolved and new life has been restored to Peter’s Aunt May Parker as the result of a Faustian bargain struck between Spider-Man and Mephisto. All of which was discussed in a recent article on Newsday.com. What has this got to do with us over here at GWP? Well, GWP Director of Communications, and noted Spider-Fan Robert J. Sodaro was quoted extensively as part of the article. Check it out for yourselves. Way to go Bob! GWP Goes International (sort of) That’s right folks, GWP is now (sort of) an International operation. As it turns out, rising star Fabio Araujo Turbay is from Brazil and came to the U.S. to pick up some comicbook contacts. Well, he wound up hooking up with the Comicbook Artists Guild. From there, it was just a short hop, skip, and jump for him to land a story in Psychosis! #2 (Robert J. Sodaro’s Ghost Writer). Well, Fabio, upon returning home to Brazil, promptly — with the approval of Sodaro and GWP Creative Director mark mazz — submitted the story to a Brazilian comicbook entitled IMBROGLIO CAPIXABA. That book is now published, and available to anyone who can read Portuguese. Congratulations Fabio and Bob. Not quite happy with the way the book turned out, Fabio is talking about re-publishing the story in a new format, along with some of his Brazilian friends. (Maybe now Fabio will form CAG’s first international branch — what do you say Fabio?) Ed Traquino Becomes Production Manager for GWP British born artist, Ed Traquino, has accepted the position of Production Manager for Guild Works Productions. Traquino has an immensely diverse background in the London comic art scene, and recently relocated to the States hoping to further pursue his life-long dream of working in the comics industry. Born in South London in 1973, Traquino has self-published several works, including Terrier & Puppies (2003), The Hollow Flat (2004), Evil Eyes (2005), and his first U.S. publication, Sleazy Does it! (2007). Traquino carved out a name for himself in the United Kingdom working on such strips as The Destructovore, and I do it 'Cos I Love It. Well-known for his ability to capture mood and dynamic character interplay his work has appeared in various UK publications which include: Bam!, Bingo Bonanza, Dogbreath, and SolarWind. His most recent UK work is a 5-page strip and the cover for Futurequake #11 from Future Quake Press. FutureQuake is a finalist in the 2007 Eagle awards. His first collaboration in the states is on the King of the Realm, an 8-page strip in Psychosis! #2 alongside writer, Mark Mazz. Mazz, GWP’s creative director had this to say, “Ed brings a style and finesse to his work that’s rarely seen in today’s marketplace. We are truly honored that he has accepted this position and place his expertise as a genuine master storyteller in the highest regard.” GWP’s president, Keith Murphey had this to add, “Ed has a unique and raw perspective and his visual narrative has an strong edge to it, which is why we know he will bring his quality vision to our line. We are very excited and look forward to seeing more of what he can do!” For more information about GPW, or Psychosis! please contact: Robert J. Sodaro, Director of Communications. *Psychosis! #1 is still available!* That’s right funnybook fans! Psychosis! #1 is still on the comicbook stands across this great land of ours. So if your comicbook shop doesn’t carry the comic, tell them that they should and have them contact GWP President, Keith J. Murphey and ask for copies for their shop.
	All	material on site	© 2007 GWP &	associated	publishers

Comics in the News

The pictures that horrified America

by mark mazz

GWP Goes International (sort of)

Ed Traquino Becomes Production Manager for GWP