By Alex Dueben
“I think it looks like no other comic out there.”
– Matt Fraction
Less than a decade ago, Matt Fraction was a young comics creator writing graphic novels like Mantooth and The Last of Independents. Today he’s an Eisner Award winning creator and one of Marvel’s top talents, writing Invincible Iron Man and Thor in addition to this year’s big crossover event miniseries Fear Itself.
This year sees the return of one of his most well known and beloved creations. Casanova is more of a cult hit than anything, but it’s an intense and devoted cult that has followed the book over its two miniseries. The third miniseries, Casanova: Avaritia, features art from award-winning creator Gabriel Ba (The Umbrella Academy and Daytripper), who drew the first miniseries (and whose twin brother drew the second one). We spoke with Fraction by phone in advance of the first issue’s release on September 7.
Read our exclusive interview with Matt Fraction on SuicideGirls.com.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
“They can certainly attack me when I’m not there.”
– Al Franken
Man I love this job! After three long years of wooing I finally got a chance to talk with the legendary comedian Al Franken. After many successful years as a standup comedian and Saturday Night Live writer, Franken has released a number of hysterical and popular books such as Why Not Me? and Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot. When Franken released Lies and the Lying Liars in 2004, esteemed filmmakers Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus followed and him and documented the experience. Now its all been put together in the film Al Franken: God Spoke.
Read our exclusive interview with Al Franken on SuicideGirls.com.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
“I do more Romero than Romero”
– Max Brooks
Who ever thought that Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio would get into a bidding war over the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft? That’s something even Nostradamus wouldn’t have predicted, but it happened. Said bidding war was over the rights to Max Brooks’ wild new zombie book World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, which tips its hat to Studs Terkel’s The Great War — but rather than featuring interviews with people involved in World War Z, the book investigates nearly every aspect of what would happen if there were a real zombie infestation in today’s world. Brooks is definitely an expert on all things zombie, having written the bestselling Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead.
Read our exclusive interview with Max Brooks on SuicideGirls.com.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
“It reads like some stoner wrote it.”
– Tommy Chong
Well, its official: hell has frozen over, the fat lady has sung, and Tommy Chong has quit smoking pot. Apparently after you smoke weed everyday for 50 years and then are forced to quit cold turkey when youre thrown in prison, you lose your taste for it. Hopefully that will never happen to me. I got a chance to talk with Chong about his time in prison, his new book The I Chong which lays out his philosophies and whether or not he thinks Cheech Marin has sold out.
Read our exclusive interview with Tommy Chong on SuicideGirls.com.
By Fred Topel
“I want to write to what seems like a fitting ending to the series.” – Charlie Day
FX introduced the new season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to the Television Critics Association with their series of four unique TV spots. With one spot for each character, they feature the gang in overly dramatic situations that are innately hilarious, because it’s the gang.
Charlie Day’s was a Miracle Worker spoof where Danny DeVito teaches him to read and pump water. Charlie’s character is known to be illiterate. After the gang’s presentation to the critics, I got some quality time with Day as he walked from the stage to his next interview. It was a little shorter than the usual interview, but still a solid walk and talk. The Sunny gang and I go way back. At one TCA party, I rode Santa Monica pier rides with Glenn Howerton and Rob McElhenney, and I was on the set of their classic “Charlie Writes a Musical” episode.
Day created the show with Howerton and McElHenney and hired Kaitlin Olsen for the FX show. Danny DeVito joined the show in season two, and the gang has relentlessly practiced hilariously bad behavior. They regularly take the politically incorrect position on hot button topics like abortion and the economic crisis (see episodes like “Dee and Dennis Go On Welfare”).
As with any success, movies came calling. Day has costarred in studio comedies like Going the Distance and Horrible Bosses. His next movie will be Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim. Sunny is signed for at least two more seasons on FX and Day addressed all of that, plus his standards of The Green Guy and Charlie’s crush on the waitress in the time we had.
Read our exclusive interview with Charlie Day on SuicideGirls.com.
By Fred Topel
“Oh shit, I accidentally jumped on a bandwagon.” – Isaac Marion
Warm Bodies is a new zombie movie in production with Teresa Palmer and Nicolas Hoult. It is based on the book by Isaac Marion, told from the point of view of a zombie named R (Hoult.) Summit Entertainment is really putting their weight behind up and coming authors. Bodies is one of three new books they green lit as movies, along with Veronica Roth’s Divergent and Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus. Bodies even has a quote from Twilight author Stephenie Meyer endorsing it on the cover.
Marion got a taste of the big time when he joined Summit’s panel of authors at San Diego Comic-Con. With his first book published, he got to face press and fans curious about the latest story in the zombie apocalypse genre. We got to sit down with Marion, and as a die hard apocalypse fan, I had some very probing questions before I devote my kindle space to Warm Bodies.
Read our exclusive interview with Isaac Marion on SuicideGirls.com.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
“You really do have to fight.”
– Joe Eszterhaus
Joe Eszterhaus enjoyed a significant run as the number one screenwriter in Hollywood. He worked on popular films like Flashdance, Jagged Edge, and Basic Instinct, but by the mid-90s he had suffered a couple of major misfires (Showgirls, Jade) and was dealing with some health issues. Eszterhaus stopped working for Hollywood and began penning books. His latest is The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood which is pages of hysterical and insightful anecdotes about screenwriting in Hollywood.
Read our exclusive interview with Joe Eszterhaus on SuicideGirls.com.
