Interview with Michael Avon Oeming and John Broglia creators of God Complex

Image Comics recently began publishing the new creator-owned series God Complex from the creative minds of Michael Avon Oeming (Powers, Team Fortress 2), John Broglia (Zombie Sama!), and Dan Berman (Six, Thor). The comic tells the story of big guy named Paul, an otherwise ordinary man. But Paul is not as ordinary as he’d like people to believe; You see, Paul is actually the Olympian god Apollo. He has grown tired of the antics of his fellow gods, particularly his father Zeus, and is hiding out in New York City.  However, Paul’s attempts to lay low in the Big Apple are futile, the pantheon of gods want Apollo back. Jeff recently had a chance to talk with Michael Avon Oeming and John Broglia about the origins of God Complex, comic convention etiquette and what they keep on their respective dork shelves.

Jeff: Welcome to DorkShelf.com fellas. Let’s start with a nice easy one. Tell us how God Complex come about?

Michael Avon Oeming: It came out of Six, the comic I did with Dan Berman and Ethen Beavers. We sold it as THEM to Fox TV and they wanted another pitch so I started working on this idea, but after I wrote the outline and some dialogue, it didn’t go anywhere. I’ve been wanting to work with John for awhile now, so one day while talking with Dan about us working together again, I dusted this off and BAM! There you go. The two of them really brought this to life.

John Broglia: All credit for the concept and characters goes to Mike. I’m just along for the ride.

Jeff: The book pulls from various portions of Greek and Roman mythology. What draws you to mythological story elements?

Michael: It was sort of my first comics. Before I was reading comics, I was very into mythology, and for the same reasons I love comics – Dudes beating up monsters, fighting evil and such. Now, as I’ve grown up, I’ve become attracted to the psychological aspect of mythology, all that Joseph Campbell stuff about how mythology is our minds making sense of the world and our lives through story.

John: Everyone who has ever picked up a comic book and enjoyed it should be drawn to mythological stories. Ancient mythology is the cornerstone of the 20th and 21st century superheroes and comic book characters. The superhero genre has been stretched pretty thin unfortunately, so the next logical step seems to be taking those ancient characters and bringing them into our modern world.

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Video Game Inspired Paintings

Artist James Barnett has created a series of oil paintings based on popular video games, what he calls Fauxvism.  The paintings feature virtual locales from Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2 and Fallout 3 to name a few, amazingly interpreted in the style of Les Fauves.  Barnett navigates the game world as an artist would in nature; finding a suitable vista to paint and works from there.  Below is a sample of Barnett’s work, the classic Team Fortress 2 map 2Fort.

Barnett created the series as a response to what he saw as “3D games slavishly imitating real life“, something that games like Team Fortress 2 are now shying away from.  Personally, I would love to play a game that looked like the stuff Barnett has painted. Where are the video game Matisse and Derain art directors of our time?!

Check out James Barnett’s Offical Site to see his series of video game paintings.  Also, if you’re interested in having a favourite virtual landscape put to canvas he also takes commissions.

Team Fortress 2: Comic, Update and Free Weekend

Released today is the first in what I hope will be a series of comics featuring the characters from Valve Software’s popular multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2. The comic was written and drawn by Michael Avon Oeming, the artist behind titles like Powers, Mice Templar and the new soon to be released Rapture.

The Sniper vs. Spy @ Team Fortress 2 Official Site

In other Team Fortress 2 news, the Sniper and the Spy update is rumoured to be released later today.

Valve has announced that the PC version Team Fortress 2 will be available to play for free to anyone this weekend on the company’s Steam game distribution service. If you’ve never tried TF2 now is your opportunity, the game runs on the flexible Source Engine so anyone should be able to run it. The TF2 free weekend starts today, so get downloading!

Team Fortress 2 @ SteamPowered.com

Team Fortress 2: Meet the Spy

Valve’s popular multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2 is one of the online games most played to this day because new content is constantly being produced for it. TF2 is to be updated again soon, adding new weapons and new abilities for Sniper and Spy classes.

It wouldn’t be a Team Fortress 2 update without a new character machinima video, and this update is no different.  Enjoy the new “Meet the Spy” video that “leaked” yesterday.

Valve will be releasing the new updates some time in the next few weeks.

Get The Orange Box for $9.99 This Weekend

What are you doing this weekend?  If you don’t already own The Orange Box you’re going to be downloading and playing it—you no longer have any excuses.  Valve Software’s online game distribution service Steam has priced The Orange Box listed at $9.99 for this weekend only. That’s right, you can own Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2 an $84.95 US value—for only $9.99!!!

Gabe Newell you magnificent bastard, this is an insane deal.  You get easily some of the best games of the past decade for only ten bucks. Why are you still reading this?!

The Orange Box for $9.99 @ Steam