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Dynamite and James Robinson Bring a Grand Passion to Comics

by Cliff Biggers

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James Robinson has always been quite passionate about his work. From his early graphic novel London’s Dark to his seminal work Starman to The Golden Age to Leave It to Chance, Robinson has parlayed that passion into some of the most memorable storytelling in the past twenty-five years of comics. But his new project reflects not only a passion on the part of the creator, but also on the part of the book’s two seemingly mismatched characters.

Grand Passion (SEP161536), a new series by James Robinson & Tom Feister, “is the story of Doc and Mabel, two people fated to meet and fall head-over-heels in love-at-first-sight,” Robinson said.  “Unfortunately, at the same time, Doc is a deputy sheriff and Mabel robs banks.  And during the shoot-out where this couple meet, Doc kills Mabel’s partner-in-crime, which further complicates things.  On top of this, there’s more to the robbery—and specifically the bank in Doc’s town— that puts both Doc and Mabel on the wrong side of an even more dangerous evil.  It’s a high stakes tale both in terms of action, mystery and romance.

"Something I've noticed lacking in a lot of comics is unbridled romance. The crazy kind when it's all life and death and love at first sight, so combining that with the hard-boiled crime milieu was something that really appealed to me. This is my attempt at doing something equal parts crazy love and crazy violent."

No doubt about it: Doc and Mabel make for a very unlikely couple. “A bank robbery brings them together—with the two of them on opposite sides of it. Doc is a widower—a deputy sheriff, recently transferred into town,” Robinson explained. “He’s a sad guy, guilty that he survived his wife.  He’s part dead himself, until he encounters Mabel, whose crazy outlook on life revives him and gets him excited to live anew... that is ,as long as he can survived knowing her at all.

“Mabel is a professional bank robber.  A little bit crazy, sure, but also with a strong code of honor.  This means she must get revenge on Doc for the murder of her partner -- even it’s she’s madly in love with Doc at the same time.”

While the series has a dark noir tone, it is not a humorless work. “There is a strong vein of black-humor in the series,”Robinson said, “but if I had to compare it to anything it would be the works of Elmore Leonard.  Yes, there’s an insanity to how the couple meet, leading to some crazy scenarios, but at the same time, there’s also very much an element of life and death to it, too.”  

As in the case of many noir tales, both Doc and Mabel possess a strong sense of honor, a moral code that drives each character—but in this case, their moral codes lead the pair in two very different directions. “It’s the two characters being on opposing sides of a bank robbery that starts it all off,” Robinson said, “So already there’s a barrier raised in the way of true love.  Then there’s the additional problem in that Doc is responsible for the death of Mabel’s partner-in-bank-robbery.  Mabel’s code of honor tells her she has to kill Doc in retribution for this.  And therein lies a couple of big obstacles to this couple riding off into the sunset together.”

Grand Passion is described by the publisher as ““Harlequin romance meets hard-boiled crime.”  Robinson explained that his inspiration came from “the tough, violent crime fiction of guys like Jim Thompson.  David Goodis. James M. Cain.  And later on Edward Bunker...  It’s as hard-boiled as Hell.  I think Grand Passion has that kind of feel, with a dark, driven, passionate undertone, but with the addition of humor and the absurdity of two people who love each other despite one of them also wanting other person dead.”

Grand Passion is Robinson’s first work for Dynamite Entertainment. “It came to Dynamite because Nick Barrucci asked me to do something for his company,” Robinson said. “I said I wanted to do a romance comic.  Nick agreed, but as I developed my story it evolved from being just romance and into an exciting stew of love, sex, crime, danger and black humor.”

"It's been a life-long dream of mine to work with James Robinson,” Dynamite publisher Nick Barrucci said. “All of us here at Dynamite are giant fans of his writing. His run on Starman with Tony Harris is one of the best storylines ever told with the character. He reinvented the character and added new dimensions to the tapestry that, in my opinion, no other writer could have, and he's continued that quality of writing to this date. Grand Passion builds upon the previous works of the likes of Garth Ennis and Andy Diggle to further establish Dynamite as the premier publisher of crime comics."

“This is our first work with James,” Dynamite Executive Editor Joseph Rybandt said, “and as a fan of his work from way back, it’s really a thrill to be working with him on this and the other projects we have lined up with him. He’ll be working with us on a couple of icons, character-wise—one you should see news on shortly!”

Grand Passion also marks the first time that Robinson has worked with artist Tom Feister, who explained how he became a part of the series. “Joe Rybandt knew I was looking for a project. I had spent a year or so working as lead character designer on an animated series for Hulu called The Awesomes (co-created by Late Night’s Seth Meyers.) Prior to that I had become known as a cover artist. 

“When I came back to the world of comics, I really wanted to try do interior work. Joe emailed me that he had a project and asked if I would be interested. He told me James Robinson was writer/ creator. That was all I had to hear. James has written some of my favorite comics, ever! Starman was incredibly important to me as a fan. I loved  Leave it to Chance—it was magical in every way, and more recently, I thought his work on Airboy took amazingly brave chances. He is a legitimate genius of the art form and I would have been a fool not to do it. 

“Beyond working with James, I wanted to see if I could rise to the challenge of doing interiors. It’s a very different skill-set than producing covers. It’s a lot more work, and I just hope I’m able to rise to the level of James’ words.”

Many artists have trouble drawing “plain clothes comics,” so to speak, having grown up with costumed heroes. Is this a challenge for Feister? “Plain clothes stuff doesn’t bother me—and there’s no small amount of people wearing no clothes in this series, so I still get to have some fun with that. 

“Most of the work I’ve done over the last several years has been on GI Joe. I tried very hard within that world to pay close attention to getting the tech and clothing as accurate as I possibly could, and I just carried that through to the world of Grand Passion. This isn’t a sci-fi world, and I try to make it feel lived in and grounded. Even within the superhero genre, which I love, my favorite artists would add in things like seams on costumes and other details to make to ground them a bit in reality.”

Finding just the right artistic approach wasn’t an easy task for Feister. “ The style has been the biggest challenge for me. Not only is this my first major interior gig, but for the first time I’m drawing all digitally on a Cintiq, and I’m only doing pen and ink. (Only the first page of issue one exists physically.) In the past, I’ve done everything—pencils, inks, and colors—so this was a big shift in style for me. 

“I tend to think in shapes of color and draw in an open line style to make coloring easier. That’s not what this project called for, so I’ve been trying to adapt to that as I work. I can see my own work evolving as I go. Spotting blacks is not something I do naturally and so I’ve been referring to masters like Brian Stelfreeze, John Paul Leon, and Al Williamson’s work to help me figure out where I want to go. 

“There are times I know exactly what I would do on a page if I were coloring it, but often I find myself searching for how to make and idea clear in just black and white. I’m getting more comfortable with it as I go, and I’m excited to apply what I’ve learned on this to my color work going forward. I wanted to try to tell as clear a story as I know how and let James’s words be the star.”

Grand Passion #1 (SEP161536), a Dynamite comic by James Robinson & Tom Feister with cover art by John Cassaday, is scheduled for November 16th release. 


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