Finishing off Frank Espinosa and Marie Taylor's Rocketo: Journey to the Hidden SeaPrevious thread>>152580327
Bump if you're reading
Reading bump
And that concludes Rocketo: Journey to the Hidden Sea by Frank Espinosa and co-written by Marie TaylorJourney to the New World never came out but Espinosa himself showed work in progress as recent as 2020As for if it'll ever come out?Not sure but crossing fingersThanks for the bump
>As a series, "Rocketo" is planned to last 48 issues, with each twelve-issue series making up one book. There are four books total, which are:>Book 1 - "Journey to the Hidden Sea">Book 2 - "Journey to the New World">Book 3 - "Journey to the Broken Moon">Book 4 - "Journey to Ultamo">"I wanted to do two stories where Rocketo discovered the world, then I wanted to play around with Rocketo in space. Kind of like Jules Verne did with his books," said Espinosa. "He spent a lot of time exploring Earth, but then he goes and explores space. The moon has been shattered too and has been floating around in tiny little pieces. Visually, I thought that would be a lot of fun to explore.">Espinosa said that the story of famed American test pilot Chuck Yeager was a huge influence on "Rocketo." "The third book, 'Journey to the Broken Moon,' is a wink from me to one of my favorite films, 'The Right Stuff,' since in this world Rocketo will be the first man in outer space, much like Yeager was really the first astronaut.">Espinosa explained that there's a possibility of some short stories to bridge one book to another, should he find a story compelling enough to tell, but said that once the series is finished there really won't be much more to say. "I might want to revisit the world again, but not with Rocketo," said Espinosa. "I think that world is fascinating in itself with all these cultures that have sprouted up. That might be kind of fun to explore further."https://www.cbr.com/journey-to-a-new-world-with-rocketo-and-creator-frank-espinosa/
>The art style employed by Espinosa for this series is rather unique to comics. It's as though his background in commercial illustration (amongst which saw Espionza redesign the Looney Tunes characters for Warner Bros. in 1992 & 2002) has been squished together with influences from French artists and American cartoonists he grew up admiring. "The best description of my art was given to me by a fellow artist named Ethan Beavers who does 'Mutation' for Speakeasy," said Espinosa. "He's a wonderful artist, I have to note that. He wrote a really nice thing about 'Rocketo' #0 and called it 'Jazz for the eyes.' I thought that was perfect. In a way it is because it's all very free form. I do very light pencils, then I just let my ink lay. Because I come from an animation background, I try to put down the movement and energy. For instance, I try to get the feeling of the hand rather than just drawing a hand. It's really more about movement than it is actual drawing. I keep a lot out of my drawings. I try to keep it simple." You might think by keeping things simple that would mean the work is easier. You'd be wrong. "It turns out that thinking of what not to put in when I'm composing a page takes up just as much time had I included everything! All art is communication and when you're trying to communicate a particular expression or gesture, it takes time.">The coloring in "Rocketo" is different than is traditionally seen in the American comics market and Espinosa thinks that's probably the Latin in him coming through. "The colors just kind of happened with 'Rocketo,'" said Espinosa. "I look at the European stuff a lot. I love that stuff. I love how they can tell a very serious story with very funny illustrations. I like that. I wanted the coloring to be as loose as my line work. I experimented a lot and found that when I was doing heavy coloring, it stiffened up my drawings.
>I really wanted to keep that almost as a first impression. I struggled with it a lot, doing tons of tests with Rocketo, changing the color of his pants and shirts and changing the way I colored his pants, so I decided one day to relax about it and the page began to talk to me. It just kind of grew organically.">Espinosa hopes that audiences see "Rocketo" as a return to the adventure serials of the early 20th Century. "'Flash Gordon' and 'Buck Rogers' were big influences with that whole adventure, larger than life thing. Originally, this was supposed to take place in space and Rocketo was a space guy who would visit a planet called Lucerne, then he'd go to another planet. He'd visit the tiger men on one planet, the birdmen on another, etc… it was very Flash Gordon. Then I said to myself, 'That's been done already!' So, I decided to change things up a bit. Which is how we come to the world that Rocketo inhabits now. I decided to place it on Earth and all those planets I created previously became countries and continents and places on Earth. That was much more fun for me because one the origins of this idea sprang from the fact we've been around as a civilization for thousands of years and we're still exploring this world. These people are just starting to explore their world and they have plenty to check out. Explorers have always been fascinating because they don't have an agenda like they're going to defeat evil.>"'Rocketo' really does go back to those early days of adventure stories," continued Espinosa. "I always describe this as 'Captain Easy' meets 'Flash Gordon' which meets 'Peanuts' which meets 'Popeye.' In fact, I've always thought Popeye was one of the greatest adventure strips. The early 'Popeye's.' They're funny and the story telling was incredible. There's a lot of that in 'Rocketo.' I just wanted to bring back all that old style adventure in a way that still had a human face to it.
>I wanted to write a story where you do get to meet Rocketo when he's young and as you go through each book he gets older, so by the end of the last book he's an older man.">Originally, Espinosa had intended "Rocketo" to be a bi-monthly book clocking in at 64 pages each. Then he met with Speakeasy chief Adam Fortier who suggested he split the issues up and make it a monthly book, which works better in the direct market. Epsinoza got hooked up with Speakeasy through his friend Alex Ross. "Alex is a good friend of mine and he used to come by the Warner Bros. studios and would give little lectures," said Espinosa. "So, I spoke with Alex over dinner when he was down here for the [Wizard World] Long Beach convention and he asked me to bring some of my work with me. He really liked it and saw right through it. He said come to the con and I'll introduce you to some people I know. I went and, sure enough, he introduced me to Adam. Darwyn Cooke was there and I found out later Darwyn really liked what I was showing Adam and really did a lot of championing for me. So, I had two big champions on my side. Two days later Adam called me up and asked for a synopsis. Two days after that he told me he wanted to pick this up. I was floored because I had been shopping it around for about a year."
>You have completed one run that establishes the world of Rocketo. What are you working on now?>Right now, I’m working on the second journey, which is a journey to the New World. I hope that will be out sometime next year. This will be about 10 issues. Then, after that, the next will be a “Journey to a Broken Moon” in which Rocketo becomes the first man in space in the future. The last is a “Journey to Ultamo.”>What are you plans after you finish these four journeys?>I will probably move on to something completely different, but the world of Rocketo is so close to me that I will probably go back to it. I may not return as regularly, but, every couple of years, I would like to release another Rocketo trade that would cover the years between each journey, which take place every four years. There are all these untold stories that I could tap into, but I don’t want to develop a series that goes on for 30 years. My main goal was to chart a man’s life from birth to death in narrative form. When you look at these four novels, you would see the beginning of a character and then a natural evolution.https://cms.mit.edu/comics-creator-frank-espinosa/
>Will you ever return to the world of Rocketo? Are there any possibilities to see new adventures of the cartographer Rocketo Garrison in the near future?>Never give up. As I answer this interview there is a new Rocketo page staring at me in the drawing board. Its taken awhile. Lots of reasons why, but also its a human time thing. These new pages are painted by hand, done with gouache, some of the pages are even in Oils. I am working on experimenting with the style, going to another place with it then before. Being older I can work faster in some ways, and slower in some. A long time ago when this book started, in mind there has been a very specific ending for Rocketo and his journeys with the book, Journey to Ultamo.https://www.lospaziobianco.it/en/the-many-faces-of-frank-espinosa-from-rocketo-to-italy/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjW5Cl6WW8k
>>152593007ill give it a bump
Yeah I can see why Alex Ross loved thisWas there a big uptick to homages like this during the early to mid 2000's?
>>152593176Art seems to be a bit clearer compared to the first volume
>>152595207Why is this page from the first volume here?
>>152595285He certainly thinks he could finish the series at the end of this volume
>>152595405Interesting to see some early Nick Derington artwork
Bumpan
>>152596942>>152595207Oh crap, my mistakeFor some reason the 198th page of the first volume couldn't get posted so I had to figure some workaround and I see it didn't work again here Here's the correct page
>>152598499and that an important page for the context
>>152598518Yeah, I knowFor whatever reason everytime I tried to upload it, the post would "pass" but actually wouldn'tI have no idea why it uploaded the wrong page since I no longer that file on me with that filename in mindMy apologies for the technical difficulties
>>152598549these things happen when poeple do storytimes
>>152598549It's okay man
>>152593022
who cares about this
>>152600804It's creator clearly, but this was a pretty interesting read diffrent from the normal comics that storytimed on /co/
I fucking love this art
So was there a pulp revival driven by nostalgia in the early 2000's?
Thanks.
>>152602732kinda I guess it was there, but compared to larger nostalgia revivals like the 80s that the 2010s had or 50s nostalgia in the 80s, it was pretty mild.It was probably less nostalgia-driven by the creators who had nostalgia for that era of fiction and more writers and creators looking to recontextualise and re-examine the tropes and aesthetics of Pulp/Raygun Gothic fiction.Moore's ABC series, like Tom Strong and Jonni Furture for the more sci-fi and heroic side examples of this or Darwyn cooke Spirt or his Parker Adaptations for the more Pulpy gritty Noir end of it would be another
>>152594937Reminds me of the Mark 1 Iron Man suit
