Eric J. Moreels
Jan 30, 2002, 12:50 am
{Originally posted at X-Fan v3.0 on January 4, 2002}
<a href="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/evo/xmevopromocd.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/evo/xmevopromocdt.jpg" align=left alt="X-Men: Evolution Burger King promo CD"></a>X-Men: Evolution comic book writer Devin Grayson, who recently unveiled her new Web site at DevinGrayson.com (http://www.devingrayson.com/), recently spoke with X-Fan about the two X-Men: Evolution dotComics that she wrote for the current promotion of the animated series through Burger King.
Grayson wrote the Cyclops and Magneto dotComics, both of which feature art from freelancer collective UDON. Long Vo of UDON's Studio XD handled the art duties on the Cyclops story, whilst UDON's Alvin Lee, Jeff Woo, and Ken Siu-Chong provided the art for the Magneto story.
<a href="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/evo/bkcyclops.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/evo/bkcyclopst.jpg" align=right alt="X-Men: Evolution Burger King Cyclops dotComic preview"></a>"They're eight pages long, for god's sake! You can read the whole thing in the same amount of time it would take me to pretend to answer your question while carefully not giving any plot points away!" Grayson said with a virtual wink.
"I was sitting in a Burger King just this evening listening to an eight-year-old explain Cyclops to his dad: '...and he has, like, these big huge red blast-like things that come out of his eyes and like BLAST everything except for when he closes them reallytightlikethis or like wears this special visor that he can never, ever take off and he's the leader and he's really, really cool!' Couldn't have said it better myself!"
"The Cyclops story is about Scott learning to deal with his own limitations and accept support from his team," Grayson explained. "The Magneto story is about Charles creating a point of reference for Magnus concerning his present behavior and the dark, war-torn past he's trying to escape."
<a href="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/evo/bkmagneto.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/evo/bmagnetot.jpg" align=left alt="X-Men: Evolution Burger King Magneto dotComic preview"></a>"The turn around on these, at least for me, was very fast - I think I had less than two days to plot and write the two stories - so my energy went into crafting a solid short story rather than trying to manipulate the dotComic medium," Grayson said. "I did tell the artists to keep the panel shapes and flow very clean and tried to concentrate more on mid-depth shots than the long or short views I might use in a comic book. Since the rest of the page sits behind the 'popped up' panels in a dotComic, you don't want to make your readers focus too much on extreme background shots for fear that they'll start trying to work the background panels into the scene as well. I think the UDON guys did a great job and I'm very pleased that I still get the chance to work with them every month on the X-Men: Evolution comic."
"{And} just want to add that, although I'm a vegetarian, I think these are really cute, cool packages. I picked one up for my little brother, but I've been having so much fun playing with it, I haven't managed to hand it over yet!"
<a href="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/evo/xmevopromocd.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/evo/xmevopromocdt.jpg" align=left alt="X-Men: Evolution Burger King promo CD"></a>X-Men: Evolution comic book writer Devin Grayson, who recently unveiled her new Web site at DevinGrayson.com (http://www.devingrayson.com/), recently spoke with X-Fan about the two X-Men: Evolution dotComics that she wrote for the current promotion of the animated series through Burger King.
Grayson wrote the Cyclops and Magneto dotComics, both of which feature art from freelancer collective UDON. Long Vo of UDON's Studio XD handled the art duties on the Cyclops story, whilst UDON's Alvin Lee, Jeff Woo, and Ken Siu-Chong provided the art for the Magneto story.
<a href="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/evo/bkcyclops.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/evo/bkcyclopst.jpg" align=right alt="X-Men: Evolution Burger King Cyclops dotComic preview"></a>"They're eight pages long, for god's sake! You can read the whole thing in the same amount of time it would take me to pretend to answer your question while carefully not giving any plot points away!" Grayson said with a virtual wink.
"I was sitting in a Burger King just this evening listening to an eight-year-old explain Cyclops to his dad: '...and he has, like, these big huge red blast-like things that come out of his eyes and like BLAST everything except for when he closes them reallytightlikethis or like wears this special visor that he can never, ever take off and he's the leader and he's really, really cool!' Couldn't have said it better myself!"
"The Cyclops story is about Scott learning to deal with his own limitations and accept support from his team," Grayson explained. "The Magneto story is about Charles creating a point of reference for Magnus concerning his present behavior and the dark, war-torn past he's trying to escape."
<a href="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/evo/bkmagneto.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/evo/bmagnetot.jpg" align=left alt="X-Men: Evolution Burger King Magneto dotComic preview"></a>"The turn around on these, at least for me, was very fast - I think I had less than two days to plot and write the two stories - so my energy went into crafting a solid short story rather than trying to manipulate the dotComic medium," Grayson said. "I did tell the artists to keep the panel shapes and flow very clean and tried to concentrate more on mid-depth shots than the long or short views I might use in a comic book. Since the rest of the page sits behind the 'popped up' panels in a dotComic, you don't want to make your readers focus too much on extreme background shots for fear that they'll start trying to work the background panels into the scene as well. I think the UDON guys did a great job and I'm very pleased that I still get the chance to work with them every month on the X-Men: Evolution comic."
"{And} just want to add that, although I'm a vegetarian, I think these are really cute, cool packages. I picked one up for my little brother, but I've been having so much fun playing with it, I haven't managed to hand it over yet!"