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Posts Tagged ‘Staff of Life’
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A Conversation with Benita Story, Co-Writer on Johnny Saturn, by Scott Story
Most of you know it by now, but Benita Story is an integral part of the team that creates Johnny Saturn. She is also my wife. What follows is a casual conversation about what she does, and her views on it.
Scott: Benita, how did your role as a co-writer on “Johnny Saturn” come about?
Benita: I’m not really sure, actually. I think we just started tossing ideas around about a story we’d like to tell, and one thing lead to another. I remember a lot of “What if…” and “What about…” and “That’s a great idea, but what if we did…” It’s like the story of twin boys – what one doesn’t think of, the other will. That’s us!
Scott: Well before you assumed the co-writer’s mantle, you were making up characters for the series. Would you tell us about that?
Benita: Ahhh… Dr. Synn. Well, you had this temporary name for the villain of the Johnny Saturn story, Dr. Synn. I liked it and it immediately conjured up the character pretty much as he ended up being. First, though, I knew what he looked like. I remembered a line from the movie “Addam’s Family Values.” They were at a school function (Halloween?) where the kids were supposed to be in costume. The teacher looked at Wednesday, who was not in costume, and asked, “And what are you supposed to be?” Wednesday deadpanned, “I’m a homocidal maniac. We look like everyone else.” That’s why Dr. Synn is dressed like a businessman in a white linen suite, fedora and walking stick. I wanted him to be able to walk down the street in any city and no one pay much attention to him. I wanted him to be proper and polite, even to the point of leaving a tip in a café that he blows up theminute he’s out of it.
And then, there are Tara and Mollie. You had drawn a picture of a blond girl with cupie-hair in your sketchbook. She just spoke to me and said, I am Tara, the grand-daughter of Karl Wissenschaft. But, the further I delved into her character, the more conflict I felt in her for all her perfect exterior. It was then I realized she was a robot based on the successful experiments Dr. Wissenschaft had done on a homeless girl. Also, I realized he had done more than based her physical aspects on this girl, but had gone so far as to download the memories and personality of this girl into Tara. But who was this homeless girl? Mollie. She came to me whole and complete as she is. A mutilated survivor of Dr. Wissenschaft’s life’s work. The Yin to Tara’s Yang. And that’s all I can say, because I don’t want to give away some important plot elements.
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Hi, Folks:
This review can be found on J.’s blog over at Mysteries of the Arcana, a supernatural dimension hopping tale that has quickly become one of my favorite comics. I love this type of story, so I endorse it wholeheartedly.
| Johnny Saturn | By JGray |
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My love for superhero comics goes backa ways. In fact, “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, the twelve partmasterpiece by Marv Wolfman and George Perez was my introduction tothe concept of multiple universes; something heavily explored here onMysteries of the Arcana. In the last several years, though, thebig publishers have done a lot to tick me off. I won’t go into mylaundry list because I could rant for hours. Instead, I’m just goingto be thankful that Scott and Benita Story came along and took up thechallenge of creating new heroes as the centerpiece of theirwebcomic, Johnny Saturn. The series starts off with the death ofthe title character. Johnny Saturn has been fighting the good fightfor over a decade, using only his fists, his wits, and the sort ofbody armor you can order from the back of Soldier of Fortune. Fromthere, things get really exciting. The archive is worth spending timewith. Better yet, order the print version so you can lovingly thumbthrough it. I won’t give away the plot. Instead,I’ll explain some of the things I love about Johnny Saturn. Thing #1 My favorite scene involves JohnnySaturn battling a group of powered villains. We get to see what he’sthinking as he fights. The mental narration is terse, almost like achecklist. Speedster? Telegraph your moves so you know where they’llhit, then hit them. Problem neutralized. I love it, because in myopinion characters like Johnny Saturn (and Batman and other mysterymen) aren’t amazing because of their fighting skills or detectiveabilities but because of their sheer tactical genius. Thing #2 There’s a phenomenon in comics known as“Women in Refridgerators”. Female characters are often raped,beaten, murdered, depowered, and stereotyped as bitches or sluts. Insome cases it seems like the writer has some sort of axe to grindwith women, in others ancillary female characters are used as plotdevices to promote the “growth” of male characters. Thephenomenon was named after a heroes girlfriend was murdered andstuffed in his fridge. The hero then tracked down her killer and, atthe last minute, decided to deliver the villain to justice ratherthan go the old eye for an eye route. Thus, the hero grew, proving hewas just and noble and all it took was the brutal murder of a woman. Johnny Saturn isn’t like that. Thefemale characters are interesting. The costumes can be a bitrevealing, yes, but the women have character. They aren’t twodimensional. They aren’t there to make the men look good, and theyaren’t there to satisfy the writer’s craving for revenge on all thegirls who rejected him in high school. In fact, the most powerful and(in my opinion) most intelligent superhero in the Johnny Saturnuniverse is a woman named Staff of Life. I can’t wait to see more ofher in action. Thing #3 There’s a whole lot to explore. Thecomic’s well written and focuses primarily on Johnny Saturn but theother heroes are just as interesting. The world, too, holds a lot ofpromise and begs to be explored. Truth be told, the setting deservesmore than just one comic. If I could get an artist and permissionfrom Scott and Benita I think I’d jump at a chance to crack open asecondary story there. Let me be clear. This isn’t a goldenage or silver age comic. There’s plenty of blood and violence andJohnny Saturn’s body bears the realistic consequences of a decade offighting crime. However, it also isn’t a Frank Miller-esque, over thetop splattercomic either. Instead, Scott and Benita have found a wayto balance the need for realism that marked comics in the 80s/90s andcombined it with the need for escapism that marked comics in the50s/60s. Go read Johnny Saturn. You won’t besorry. |
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These were preparatory sketches for a “Women of Johnny Saturn” poster we did, although almost all this work got revised once it made it paper. Below is my first attempt at a Turnaround for Staff—Clearly, she was not yet the character she would become! Staff is one of my favorite characters, so these old, old drawings strike me as awkward.
I’ve never been all that happy with the costume I designed for Staff of Life, so I’ve redesigned it several times now. Clearly, these attempts were not good enough to make the cut, and the last thing I needed to do was to include another costume with thigh-high boots!
Hi, Folks!
Here is a new drawing of our Staff of Life, this time by Amy Letts of the webcomic Epic Fail. By all means, check this comic out!
This post also gives me the pleasure of announcing the inclusion of Intense Debate onto the Johnny Saturn site. I figured that if service is good enough for Kris Straub of Starslip Crisis, then it’s good enough for us.
Intense Debate brings the functionality of a forum to the WordPress commenting system. Now, you can respond to each others’ posts, essentially creating new threads. You can also post pictures. Pretty impressive system, all said and done.
Thanks, and have a great weekend!
Scott