#1 Robin Hood - Nueva novela grafica
BACK TO SHERWOOD: TONY LEE TALKS ROBIN HOOD: OUTLAW'S PRIDE
Who was Robin Hood?
People have been trying to figure that out for centuries. The popular archetypical folk hero of Britain has been ripe for many to interpret his legends, from movies to books and video games…but curiously enough, rarely to comics. That's all about to change thanks to writer Tony Lee and artist Sam Hart in an original graphic novel called Robin Hood: Outlaw's Pride.
If you're wondering who Robin Hood is…. Please, please get outside more often.
Newsarama: Over on Rich Johnston’s Lying in the Gutters, the news broke that you were working on a series with Sam Hart called Robin Hood – Outlaw's Pride. Rich showed off some piece of artwork, but we want more than that. Can you tell us about the book?
Tony Lee I love Robin Hood. Always have done. I grew up with Richard Carpenter's Robin of Sherwood and Errol Flynn's 1938 Robin Hood every Christmas. In the nineties we had Prince of Thieves and the (in my mind) better Patric Bergen version, and a friend of mine, Peter Howarth wrote a west-end musical called Robin – Prince of Sherwood which I saw many times. I love Robin Hood.
There was a scene in Midnight Kiss #1 that had Robin in Sherwood, one of the realms of the multiverse with a hatred of Matt Sable. You don't discover what it was until issue #5, and I had a long Robin Hood arc planned for later issues, but then the comic got cancelled and I lost my opportunity.
NRAMA: So your chance to write Robin Hood closed before you got to it. What happened next?
TL: Anyway, later on, Sam Hart (my artist on Starship Troopers: Blaze of Glory and Brothers – The Fall of Lucifer) reads Midnight Kiss and loves it, and sends me a picture of Robin Hood he's drawn for me. Straight away I realized that this was something that was meant to be. By pure chance I was talking to another publisher later that day and mentioned this, and they expressed a lot of interest in an updated Robin Hood graphic novel – so I contacted Sam and we decided that whatever happens, we'd do it. Sam's a fast artist and can split time between his paid work and this, and his concept designs are gorgeous.
There's a lot of talk on Robin Hood at the moment – BBC1 are doing a new show, Warren Ellis is playing with an idea for a 'true' Robin Hood story, based on factual characters – my story is going more along the traditional storyline however, keeping Robin in the 1190's. I've basically gone through the more romanticized stories of the Middle ages – originally the tales were set around the 1300's and in Barnsdale – but then later in it became very much 'while King Richard is away, Robin fights against King John', the tales that many of the movies and TV shows were based around.
NRAMA: With so many interpretations of Robin Hood, what was it like to make your own be both familiar yet original?
TL: It's actually more difficult to come up with a re-vitalized tale for Robin than I imagined, mainly as there are so many differing points – from character name changes – Will Stutely, a 'Merry Man' in some books is Will Scarlet in some tales, in others Stutley's a steward and Will Scarlet is a totally different character – in Prince of Thieves he's Robin's brother for gods sake – so I've tried to be truthful to all interpretations. Many of the stories have common points – Little John's quarterstaff fight, the archery contest, that sort of thing. Of course, the silver arrow in one story is a golden one in another… Here comes that headache again…
One of the issues we've had is which Robin – is it the Robin of Loxley, or Locksley – or is it Robert of Huntington? Both are 'origins' of the character. Robin of Sherwood used both of them for two different Robins – In Outlaw's Pride we've gone for both on the same outlaw, having Robin of Loxley made Earl of Huntington only to lose it when he becomes outlawed.
But that's not the only change – we've also played with Tuck, made him a Knights Templar Friar who Robin meets on the Crusades – he's the same Tuck, but with a bit more spark – as if he was played by Brian Blessed on crack.
NRAMA: I'm not sure many Americans will get that reference, but it's a sight. Anyway.. what kind of format is this coming out in?
TL:It's not a series, it'll be a full-color graphic novel – we felt this would help Sam's schedule a lot more, and also it'll sell better in the book market than an ongoing. It'll be about 140-odd pages, I reckon.
We're starting it right at the beginning, too. Robin as a child, we see his early days with his father, we learn why Robin took up the bow so zealously, we learn about Marion, a widow in this book, we see a different side to Little John, a victim from Hathersage and we see a different relationship between Gisburn and the Sheriff - more the 1938 Basil Rathbone relationship than the later Robin of Sherwood one.
It's actually quite scary how easily the story's fitting together - at the time of writing this I'm a third into the script and we're about to discover why Robin's the 'hooded man' - and it's a reason never given before (to my knowledge). The supernatural side of the story is taking over as well, we're about to have ghostly visitations and suchlike.
It's very difficult however to ride the line between 'authentic' Robin Hood speak - ie how they should sound based on the ballads and books, and the twenty-first century young readers. We can't have Robin doing leet-speak for example, or even saying things like 'you have ten seconds' as it's wrong for the time.
The most fun I'm having though it mixing fact and fiction. The events that hit Robin in Jerusalem are related to the real reports of Richard the Lionheart's attitude at the Battle of Acre. The Sheriff of Nottingham is actually loosely based on one of the alleged Sheriffs of the time. Things like that.
NRAMA: You seem quite aware of the many different interpretations of Robin Hood. To you, what has been the definitive Robin Hood story you've seen, read or heard?
TLThat's a tough one actually, I love them all. I grew up on Errol Flynn and a Disney fox, in my teenage years I had Robin of Sherwood and the new age angle - but I really have to go back to the old folk tales. There's something innocent about them, bawdy tales where there's no subplot, it's just a simple story where Robin (or one of his men) gets the better of the Sheriff.
I've got a copy of the Henry Gilbert Robin Hood book on my desk as I speak, and this weekend past for my birthday, Charly (my girlfriend) got me a first edition Robin Hood by Rose Yeatman Wollf that I've yet to read - I'm too scared to touch it!
I don't think there's ever been a definitive Robin story - as every time it's re-done, it's re-imagined. In the ‘80s we had Nasir, who then became Azeem in Prince of Thieves - before that there wasn't such a character in the books.
I have to say however - and this is something I'd love to find - the story that made me want to write a Robin Hood story was actually Japanese - Robin Hood no Daibōken - and was a 90's anime version where Robin and his men etc were kids (in the usual way), but the bad guy, Gilbert (not Guy of Gisbourne - although he does turn up later) is a brilliant character - and you actually start rooting for him, which makes the surprise ending so much sweeter.
If anyone knows where I can get this on DVD, I'd love to know.
NRAMA: You heard the man, talkbackers.
Tony, What kind of research have you done for Robin Hood: Outlaw's Pride?
TL: Man, I've been everywhere! Luckily I've been a fan of the story for a while now, so most of what I wanted to check has been close to hand, but it's been a journey. I even went last week to Nottingham's Tales Of Robin Hood tourist attraction to see what the city itself said. Apparently Robin is a rather dodgy papier mache model. But they did have the original Herne the Hunter costume from Robin of Sherwood, so that made my day.
Researching this has been a double edged sword. How much fact do I put in - and does it dilute the fiction too much - I was having a discussion when I first started with Warren Ellis on his Engine forum - both of us are doing Robin Hood projects, yet are walking in totally different directions. Warren wants to do a smaller tale, a factual one involving real characters that can be validated, and he's doing incredibly well with it, whereas by using the traditional tales set in the 1190's, I'm walking straight into fiction - the 'factual' Robin lived over a hundred years later. But with the movies and TV, the common public seem to expect a Robin that's fighting for Richard against the Normans, etc. It seems a shame to let them down.
So research wise I've been through a lot of the myths, read books by Andrew Lang and Henry Gilbert, as well as more factual books by people such as J.C Holt. I've also had to sit through a lot of TV and films, from brilliant movies like Errol Flynn's one or Sean Connery in Robin and Marian, all the way to things like Disney's Princess of Thieves - and believe me, even Kiera Knightley didn't save that one! I've also had a lot of assistance from experts in the genre, most notably Alan W. Wright, who contacted me early in the planning to introduce me to his research website - www.boldoutlaw.com.
I've also read the history books however, working out who historically was the Sheriff at that point, what stage the Crusades were at when Robin would have left, and what was happening to Richards Earls after the battle of Acre (Leopold's banner was taken down, which led in part to Richard being captured later), that sort of thing. It's a lengthy process, but I hope that it'll show in the finished product.
NRAMA: Who will be publishing the book, and when can people start to look out for it?
TL: Well, it's garnered a hell of a lot of interest since Rich stuck it on Lying In The Gutters, we've had several publishers of both comics and books come to us offering to publish.
In the end, it came down to two publishers, but due to investor and scheduling problems one of them had to pull out. So, we're waiting at the moment from Walker Books for confirmation, which should be received by the time you post this. Emil Fortune, our main contact there, and the guy who gave me my shot with Raven's Gate is very optimistic about it, and they've got the international backing to make this a massive seller in the book market alone - who knows what it'll be like in the comics market!
The really exciting thing about Walker doing it, is that following Stormbreaker and Raven's Gate, this'll be the first Graphic Novel they do that's not a direct book adaptation - it'll rise or fall on its own merits. So the bar's definitely been raised.
If all goes to schedule, it should take until around February next year to finish - so we're looking at a Summer 2007 release. That said, it may even be earlier - Sam's loving every second of this one, although it might be because it gives him an excuse to watch endless re-runs of Robin Of Sherwood...
NRAMA: Finally - we've also heard of something you're doing called Mitten The Magical Kitten; What's that about?
TL: Well. Basically, one of my best friends is an insane cat-lover called Tanya, and for years I'be been promising her I'd write a children's book based on a kitten of some description.
A while back I was doing a signing at the Bristol Comic Con and I saw this kid, no more than four years old, reading a book and having a whale of a time with it. Having a look at it, I loved the simplicity of it, each page was a verse of a poem, four lines, simplistic story - and I decided I'd have a go when I next had a break in my schedule.
Of course, easier said than done, and over the next few weeks I came up with this idea of a Kitten in a stage magician's costume. A Magical Kitten - named Mitten.
From that point I worked out the antagonists - the Grumbles - these are creatures from under the bed that prefer you to be unhappy and sad rather than happy - and as I worked out that, snippets of the poem came into my head - and this is as I'm about to go to sleep, about one in the morning - I wrote the first verse - which, strangely enough was set halfway through the story -
"I'm Mitten the Magical Kitten," he said,
"I have come from a long way away.
When I heard that the Grumbles were under your bed,
I returned with a Magic display!"
So I had this vision of this manic kitten in top hat and tails - and the next thing I know it's about three, four in the morning and I have about forty verses. All about how Mitten arrives to save two children from the Grumbles by a variety of magical trickery.
So now I have the poem, I have the book laid out, it's with a book publisher at the moment and I'm currently speaking to a few artists about the illustrations. Hopefully, all things considered, it might even be out for a Christmas release!
NewsaramaWho was Robin Hood?
People have been trying to figure that out for centuries. The popular archetypical folk hero of Britain has been ripe for many to interpret his legends, from movies to books and video games…but curiously enough, rarely to comics. That's all about to change thanks to writer Tony Lee and artist Sam Hart in an original graphic novel called Robin Hood: Outlaw's Pride.
If you're wondering who Robin Hood is…. Please, please get outside more often.
Newsarama: Over on Rich Johnston’s Lying in the Gutters, the news broke that you were working on a series with Sam Hart called Robin Hood – Outlaw's Pride. Rich showed off some piece of artwork, but we want more than that. Can you tell us about the book?
Tony Lee I love Robin Hood. Always have done. I grew up with Richard Carpenter's Robin of Sherwood and Errol Flynn's 1938 Robin Hood every Christmas. In the nineties we had Prince of Thieves and the (in my mind) better Patric Bergen version, and a friend of mine, Peter Howarth wrote a west-end musical called Robin – Prince of Sherwood which I saw many times. I love Robin Hood.
There was a scene in Midnight Kiss #1 that had Robin in Sherwood, one of the realms of the multiverse with a hatred of Matt Sable. You don't discover what it was until issue #5, and I had a long Robin Hood arc planned for later issues, but then the comic got cancelled and I lost my opportunity.
NRAMA: So your chance to write Robin Hood closed before you got to it. What happened next?
TL: Anyway, later on, Sam Hart (my artist on Starship Troopers: Blaze of Glory and Brothers – The Fall of Lucifer) reads Midnight Kiss and loves it, and sends me a picture of Robin Hood he's drawn for me. Straight away I realized that this was something that was meant to be. By pure chance I was talking to another publisher later that day and mentioned this, and they expressed a lot of interest in an updated Robin Hood graphic novel – so I contacted Sam and we decided that whatever happens, we'd do it. Sam's a fast artist and can split time between his paid work and this, and his concept designs are gorgeous.
There's a lot of talk on Robin Hood at the moment – BBC1 are doing a new show, Warren Ellis is playing with an idea for a 'true' Robin Hood story, based on factual characters – my story is going more along the traditional storyline however, keeping Robin in the 1190's. I've basically gone through the more romanticized stories of the Middle ages – originally the tales were set around the 1300's and in Barnsdale – but then later in it became very much 'while King Richard is away, Robin fights against King John', the tales that many of the movies and TV shows were based around.
NRAMA: With so many interpretations of Robin Hood, what was it like to make your own be both familiar yet original?
TL: It's actually more difficult to come up with a re-vitalized tale for Robin than I imagined, mainly as there are so many differing points – from character name changes – Will Stutely, a 'Merry Man' in some books is Will Scarlet in some tales, in others Stutley's a steward and Will Scarlet is a totally different character – in Prince of Thieves he's Robin's brother for gods sake – so I've tried to be truthful to all interpretations. Many of the stories have common points – Little John's quarterstaff fight, the archery contest, that sort of thing. Of course, the silver arrow in one story is a golden one in another… Here comes that headache again…
One of the issues we've had is which Robin – is it the Robin of Loxley, or Locksley – or is it Robert of Huntington? Both are 'origins' of the character. Robin of Sherwood used both of them for two different Robins – In Outlaw's Pride we've gone for both on the same outlaw, having Robin of Loxley made Earl of Huntington only to lose it when he becomes outlawed.
But that's not the only change – we've also played with Tuck, made him a Knights Templar Friar who Robin meets on the Crusades – he's the same Tuck, but with a bit more spark – as if he was played by Brian Blessed on crack.
NRAMA: I'm not sure many Americans will get that reference, but it's a sight. Anyway.. what kind of format is this coming out in?
TL:It's not a series, it'll be a full-color graphic novel – we felt this would help Sam's schedule a lot more, and also it'll sell better in the book market than an ongoing. It'll be about 140-odd pages, I reckon.
We're starting it right at the beginning, too. Robin as a child, we see his early days with his father, we learn why Robin took up the bow so zealously, we learn about Marion, a widow in this book, we see a different side to Little John, a victim from Hathersage and we see a different relationship between Gisburn and the Sheriff - more the 1938 Basil Rathbone relationship than the later Robin of Sherwood one.
It's actually quite scary how easily the story's fitting together - at the time of writing this I'm a third into the script and we're about to discover why Robin's the 'hooded man' - and it's a reason never given before (to my knowledge). The supernatural side of the story is taking over as well, we're about to have ghostly visitations and suchlike.
It's very difficult however to ride the line between 'authentic' Robin Hood speak - ie how they should sound based on the ballads and books, and the twenty-first century young readers. We can't have Robin doing leet-speak for example, or even saying things like 'you have ten seconds' as it's wrong for the time.
The most fun I'm having though it mixing fact and fiction. The events that hit Robin in Jerusalem are related to the real reports of Richard the Lionheart's attitude at the Battle of Acre. The Sheriff of Nottingham is actually loosely based on one of the alleged Sheriffs of the time. Things like that.
NRAMA: You seem quite aware of the many different interpretations of Robin Hood. To you, what has been the definitive Robin Hood story you've seen, read or heard?
TLThat's a tough one actually, I love them all. I grew up on Errol Flynn and a Disney fox, in my teenage years I had Robin of Sherwood and the new age angle - but I really have to go back to the old folk tales. There's something innocent about them, bawdy tales where there's no subplot, it's just a simple story where Robin (or one of his men) gets the better of the Sheriff.
I've got a copy of the Henry Gilbert Robin Hood book on my desk as I speak, and this weekend past for my birthday, Charly (my girlfriend) got me a first edition Robin Hood by Rose Yeatman Wollf that I've yet to read - I'm too scared to touch it!
I don't think there's ever been a definitive Robin story - as every time it's re-done, it's re-imagined. In the ‘80s we had Nasir, who then became Azeem in Prince of Thieves - before that there wasn't such a character in the books.
I have to say however - and this is something I'd love to find - the story that made me want to write a Robin Hood story was actually Japanese - Robin Hood no Daibōken - and was a 90's anime version where Robin and his men etc were kids (in the usual way), but the bad guy, Gilbert (not Guy of Gisbourne - although he does turn up later) is a brilliant character - and you actually start rooting for him, which makes the surprise ending so much sweeter.
If anyone knows where I can get this on DVD, I'd love to know.
NRAMA: You heard the man, talkbackers.
Tony, What kind of research have you done for Robin Hood: Outlaw's Pride?
TL: Man, I've been everywhere! Luckily I've been a fan of the story for a while now, so most of what I wanted to check has been close to hand, but it's been a journey. I even went last week to Nottingham's Tales Of Robin Hood tourist attraction to see what the city itself said. Apparently Robin is a rather dodgy papier mache model. But they did have the original Herne the Hunter costume from Robin of Sherwood, so that made my day.
Researching this has been a double edged sword. How much fact do I put in - and does it dilute the fiction too much - I was having a discussion when I first started with Warren Ellis on his Engine forum - both of us are doing Robin Hood projects, yet are walking in totally different directions. Warren wants to do a smaller tale, a factual one involving real characters that can be validated, and he's doing incredibly well with it, whereas by using the traditional tales set in the 1190's, I'm walking straight into fiction - the 'factual' Robin lived over a hundred years later. But with the movies and TV, the common public seem to expect a Robin that's fighting for Richard against the Normans, etc. It seems a shame to let them down.
So research wise I've been through a lot of the myths, read books by Andrew Lang and Henry Gilbert, as well as more factual books by people such as J.C Holt. I've also had to sit through a lot of TV and films, from brilliant movies like Errol Flynn's one or Sean Connery in Robin and Marian, all the way to things like Disney's Princess of Thieves - and believe me, even Kiera Knightley didn't save that one! I've also had a lot of assistance from experts in the genre, most notably Alan W. Wright, who contacted me early in the planning to introduce me to his research website - www.boldoutlaw.com.
I've also read the history books however, working out who historically was the Sheriff at that point, what stage the Crusades were at when Robin would have left, and what was happening to Richards Earls after the battle of Acre (Leopold's banner was taken down, which led in part to Richard being captured later), that sort of thing. It's a lengthy process, but I hope that it'll show in the finished product.
NRAMA: Who will be publishing the book, and when can people start to look out for it?
TL: Well, it's garnered a hell of a lot of interest since Rich stuck it on Lying In The Gutters, we've had several publishers of both comics and books come to us offering to publish.
In the end, it came down to two publishers, but due to investor and scheduling problems one of them had to pull out. So, we're waiting at the moment from Walker Books for confirmation, which should be received by the time you post this. Emil Fortune, our main contact there, and the guy who gave me my shot with Raven's Gate is very optimistic about it, and they've got the international backing to make this a massive seller in the book market alone - who knows what it'll be like in the comics market!
The really exciting thing about Walker doing it, is that following Stormbreaker and Raven's Gate, this'll be the first Graphic Novel they do that's not a direct book adaptation - it'll rise or fall on its own merits. So the bar's definitely been raised.
If all goes to schedule, it should take until around February next year to finish - so we're looking at a Summer 2007 release. That said, it may even be earlier - Sam's loving every second of this one, although it might be because it gives him an excuse to watch endless re-runs of Robin Of Sherwood...
NRAMA: Finally - we've also heard of something you're doing called Mitten The Magical Kitten; What's that about?
TL: Well. Basically, one of my best friends is an insane cat-lover called Tanya, and for years I'be been promising her I'd write a children's book based on a kitten of some description.
A while back I was doing a signing at the Bristol Comic Con and I saw this kid, no more than four years old, reading a book and having a whale of a time with it. Having a look at it, I loved the simplicity of it, each page was a verse of a poem, four lines, simplistic story - and I decided I'd have a go when I next had a break in my schedule.
Of course, easier said than done, and over the next few weeks I came up with this idea of a Kitten in a stage magician's costume. A Magical Kitten - named Mitten.
From that point I worked out the antagonists - the Grumbles - these are creatures from under the bed that prefer you to be unhappy and sad rather than happy - and as I worked out that, snippets of the poem came into my head - and this is as I'm about to go to sleep, about one in the morning - I wrote the first verse - which, strangely enough was set halfway through the story -
"I'm Mitten the Magical Kitten," he said,
"I have come from a long way away.
When I heard that the Grumbles were under your bed,
I returned with a Magic display!"
So I had this vision of this manic kitten in top hat and tails - and the next thing I know it's about three, four in the morning and I have about forty verses. All about how Mitten arrives to save two children from the Grumbles by a variety of magical trickery.
So now I have the poem, I have the book laid out, it's with a book publisher at the moment and I'm currently speaking to a few artists about the illustrations. Hopefully, all things considered, it might even be out for a Christmas release!
Me gustan los dibujos.
Pinta lindo. Espero que se consigan los scans despues
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