Cereal At Midnight

Cereal At Midnight sits down with writer and indie comix giant Jan Strnad to talk about the early days of comics, sci-fi, fantasy, and horror fandom, his years at Disney TV Animation, writing Star Wars, and his decades-long working collaboration with illustrator Richard Corben. (Continued from  Part 2 ) Cereal At Midnight:  Given everything that we've talked about and your insight into the world of big franchises, corporate mandates, and executives who aren't familiar with the source material that serves as the foundation for their tentpoles, the value of independent creation seems more important than ever. Can you talk to me about the importance of underground comics and creators, both when you were first starting out and as you see the medium today?  Jan Strnad: I grew up with comics published under the Comics Code Authority and only discovered the pre-code comics in my late teens. The EC line in particular blew my mind because the comics were so literate, sometimes ad...

Cereal At Midnight sits down with writer and indie comix giant Jan Strnad to talk about the early days of comics, sci-fi, fantasy, and horror fandom, his years at Disney TV Animation, writing Star Wars , and his decades-long friendship and working collaboration with illustrator Richard Corben. (Continued from Part 1 ) Cereal At Midnight : As someone who cared enough about genre entertainment to publish Anomaly , a fanzine filled with the work of great creators (including your long-time friend and collaborator Richard Corben) do you have any thoughts on the current state of fandom? You said there's an incredible amount of first rate material out there. Is it harder to find that material now that we're being super-served with genre entertainment? And does the fact that so much of this genre entertainment is coming from major corporations and not independent voices have any impact on the conversation? Jan Strnad : I’m certain that I enjoyed the genre material of my era, the 1950s ...

Cereal At Midnight sits down with writer and indie comix giant Jan Strnad to talk about the early days of comics, sci-fi, fantasy, and horror fandom, his years at Disney TV Animation, writing Star Wars, and his decades-long friendship and working collaboration with illustrator Richard Corben. Cereal At Midnight: Jan, you've had an incredibly prolific career in multiple mediums. Beginning with your contributions to nascent comics fan publications at a time when comic book enthusiasts were only just beginning to organize as the subculture that we now know today, you have been at the forefront of fandom for decades. From multiple underground and independent characters and publications with Richard Corben to celebrated projects at Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, to your contributions to the Star Wars galaxy and even your work on television screens with Disney animation, your stories have fired the imagination of millions. What were the stories that inspired you to pick up a pen for your ow...

2022's MEAD doesn't look like anything else because there's nothing else quite like it. Any similarities to Pixar films or the modern Marvel zeitgeist owe more to the visual influence and style of Richard Corben and the words of Jan Strnad, the two men who first created these characters and designs back in 1972 for the underground "adults only" comic book Fever Dreams . Those comic origins shine through in the feature film, which retains the underground, independent spirit of the source material while striking a more all-ages tone that jettisons things like nudity from the original tale in favor of something more approachable.  MEAD is not just the name of the film, it's also the moniker of the mechanical wonder (voiced by Patton Oswalt) at the center of the story. The Mobile Extrasensory Autonomous Deceptor is a ship with a soul that can project illusions that are indistinguishable from reality. The ship itself was created with military applications in mind,...