INTERVIEW & PREVIEW: ‘Adventure Time’ comes to comiXology with ‘Marshall Lee Spectacular’
ComiXology, Amazon’s foray into reading and purchasing online comic books, has started producing their own original content for the platform, and their first property is the hugely successful Adventure Time from Cartoon Network. Both children and adults can now enjoy Adventure Time Marshall Lee Spectacular exclusively on comiXology and Kindle.
The four adventures in the book include “Not Funny” by writer Mariko Tamaki and artist Audrey Mok, “The Bravest Prince” by writer Melanie Gillman and artist Trungles, “Disqualified” by writer S.M. Vidaurri and artist Asia Kendrick-Horton, and “It’s Not Hard To Be Bad” by Vidaurri.
BOOM! Studios launched Adventure Time comics in 2012, no doubt trying to attract the Cartoon Network audience that regularly tunes in to the animated series. The show follows the enjoyable and downright weird adventures of Finn and Jake in the Land of Ooo. Trust Hollywood Soapbox, if fanboys or fangirls have attended a comic convention, they probably have run into some Adventure Time cosplaying. Now BOOM!, Cartoon Network and comiXology are continuing the franchise into a new online realm.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Tamaki and Vidaurri about Marshall Lee Spectacular. Question and answers have been slightly edited for style.
MARIKO TAMAKI
Where did the idea for “Not Funny” come from?
It’s actually something that happened to me when I was a little kid. A friend of mine slipped on the ice, and I had a horrible nervous giggling moment. I’ve always been a bit of an inappropriate laugher. And an appropriate laugher, but that’s not really an issue.
When you write a comic book that is appropriate for all ages, who do you consider to be the target audience?
I think if you’re an AT fan, or you like muffins, or you like big scary creatures, you would probably enjoy at least a part of this comic.
How do you see the Marshall Lee character? Did you enjoy writing this story for him to better understand his personality?
Marshall Lee is a super interesting character. I don’t know if I understand him much better (he’s complex!), but I definitely enjoyed hanging out with him.
S.M. VIDAURRI
“Disqualified” has a lot of fun with words. Did the dialogue come easily?
I think it came pretty easily once I was familiar with the character. I watched the Marshall Lee episodes a few times each and tried to find out what the writers of the show were doing with him. Obviously, I don’t know what their intention is, but to me, he’s not just a Marceline copy; he has his own flair, an insecurity and bravado that Marceline doesn’t really seem to have. I had to kind of get out of my Marceline voice, who is the character I have previously written for in the Adventure Time comics because my first draft Marshall Lee was much too Marceline like — a bit more self aware, a little more clever. But Marshall is more daring, more brash.
Where did the idea for a villainous festival come from?
The story I wrote is short, so, there’s not a lot of time to introduce characters. You kind of have to get in and get out, but all of the Fionna and Cake AU characters are so charming I wanted to make sure to squeeze in as many as I can. My solution was to gather them all up at some sort of event. Originally I was going to have Marshall Lee be the reigning champion, but then I realized that he is actually probably way too cool for this competition, but not cool enough to not attend and see what’s going on. I wrote it all very fast because the deadline was pretty tight, so I kind of just flew by the seat of my pants.
Was it fun having these characters get out of their comfort zones, especially having the prince trying to be a bad guy?
Yeah, definitely. Marshall struggling with having to do something he thinks is tacky, and Gumball having to do something he thinks is objectionable. If I had more pages, I might have done a story that explored them in their element more, but when you’re doing something short, it’s better if you just start at 100 percent because you don’t have the time to ramp up.
A lot of Marshall and Gumball works because it’s based on Marceline and Bubblegum, and so you can kind of rely on that to inform the characters, even though they aren’t carbon copies. And while it’s really important to get those distinctions, it’s a nice springboard that lets you get away with not having to set up an intricate backstory, and to explain why there is tension between these two characters.
The Adventure Time world works because it is so developed and yet still so open. You can lean on it because the show has such a rich vocabulary and introduces such wild stuff that always seems to fit into the world. Like, a world with a Lumpy Space Princess? You may think you can just introduce anything, but I think you still have to operate inside the logic that exists. If you can nail that sense of belonging, then you’re free to try anything.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Adventure Time Marshall Lee Spectacular is now available on comiXology and Kindle. Click here for more information.
