Brazil was the Guest of Honour of the Frankfurt Book Fair 2013. Among the many writers and artists from the country who were invited to the book fair were brazilian twin-brothes Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon. They are working primarily on American comic books, as writers and artists, separately and together as a team. Their Vertigo series Daytripper from 2011 has won multiple awards. Stefan Svik met the twins at the fair for an interview.

Colin Wilson is a comic book artist connecting continents. He was born in New Zealand, lived in England an France in the 1980s and 1990s and moved to Australia in 1997. His first professional comics appeared in the British anthology 2000 AD, since then he made comic books for both sides of the anthology: He worked for Frech and Belgian publishers (The Young Blueberry, Bullet in the Head) as well as American publishers (Point Blank, Star Wars: Invasion). When New Zealand was guest of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2012, he was invited by German publisher Panini to do some signings in Germany. We met him at a comics store in Hanover for the following interview.

Born in New Jersey in 1950, Howard Chaykin likes to draw good-looking action heroes, preferably of Jewish descent, with a soft spot for guns, women and snappy one-liners – and he’s been at it for more than 30 years, at this juncture. At Comic-Salon Erlangen 2010, Marc-Oliver Frisch sat down with a good-humored Howard Chaykin to talk about art, ego and hip-hop – and some grown-up stuff, as well.

[Hier geht’s zur deutschen Version.] Robert Kirkman first entered the North American comics industry with his own publishing house, Funk-O-Tron. In addition to titles such as Take, which among others included Joe Casey and Charlie Adlard’s „Codeflesh,“ Funk-O-Tron also published Kirkman’s own Battle Pope series. In 2002, Kirkman moved his projects to Image Comics. Starting out with lukewarm initial sales, both of Kirkman’s ongoing series – the superhero epic Invincible and the zombie title The Walking Dead – began to buck the trend in 2003 and have been steadily climbing the sales charts ever since. Through his success at Image, Kirkman attracted the attention of Marvel Comics. At Marvel, he wrote for company-owned projects such as „Sleepwalker“ (released in Epic Anthology #1), a four-part Captain America story, the X-Men spin-off Jubilee and the fifth-week event Marvel Knights 2099, but most of those projects lacked the critical and financial success of his own creations. Kirkman’s ongoing title Marvel Team-Up has been said to continue until mid-2006, despite mediocre sales. Other upcoming Marvel publications written by Kirkman …

The movie The Surrogates, starring Bruce Willis, will be shown in Germany at the beginning of next year. It is based on the comic of the same title. The single issues were collected and released as a TPB in the States in 2006 while the foreign editions have been published not until this year. The German publisher, Cross Cult (which is also licensee of the German issues of comics such as Sin City, Hellboy, The Walking Dead, and The Umbrella Academy), invited writer Robert Venditti and artist Brett Weldele to the Frankfurt Book Fair and a short signing tour. On October, 16th, Comicgate’s Andreas Völlinger and Frauke Pfeiffer had the pleasure to interview the two gents who have never been to Europe before … [Hier geht es zur deutschen Version.] Andreas: Okay, Robert and Brett, let’s start this interview. Is it kind of strange to promote a book that is … how old? Four years? Robert: Yes, the single issues came out in 2005. AV: So, that was the first time you had to talk …

US writer Scott Tipton is known for several Star Trek, Angel and Spike comic books as well as for his website comics101.com, where he publishes comments on the history of American comics. His frequent collaborator, the Italian David Messina, is a fan favorite Star Trek artist. Together they worked on comics like Star Trek: Mirror Images [Spiegelbilder] und Star Trek – The Next Generation: Intelligence Gathering [Tor zur Apokalypse], published in Germany by Crosscult. David Messina is also the artist of Countdown, the official prequel of the new Star Trek movie. Andreas Völlinger interviewed the two comic book artists in November at the Fantasydays in Düsseldorf while a wild cosplay show took place in the hall right below the press room. [Hier geht’s zur deutschen Version.]   Comicgate: Alright, I’m here with Scott Tipton [right on photo] and David Messina [left on photo]. Scott, you are from the United States, but which part exactly? Scott Tipton: From Los Angeles. CG: And David, where in Italy do you live? David Messina: Rome. CG: How was the …

Coinciding with the german release of Chew, we did not only chat with writer John Layman, but also with artist and co-creator Rob Guillory. Talking to Thomas Koegel via Instant Messenger, Rob told us how he got the job, how an issue of Chew is made and why he likes creator-owned comics so much more than company-owned superhero books.