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11-2006: ERIC BASALDUA TO DRAW NEW APHRODITE IX

At the WizardWorldTexas-convention, CEO of Top Cow Marc Silvestri announced the 2007-return of AIX with artist Eric Basaldua and writer Dan Jevons at the helm. Source

APHRODITE IX: PILOT SEASON #1

Written by Dan Jevons, art by and cover Eric Basaldua.

The deadly and beautiful android assassin, Aphrodite IX is back! On the solar system's first artificially created, privately owned moon, Aphrodite awakens standing over a body holding a smoking gun. Without any memories, Aphrodite must search for answers before her past catches up with her. Bringing back a fan favorite with a shocking twist ending that readers won't see coming!

32 pages, $2.99.

09-2007: TOP COW PULLS PILOT SEASON: APHRODITE IX FROM SCHEDULE

Top Cow Productions announced today a change in their line up for the Pilot Season promotion. Pilot Season puts fans in control of Top Cow's 2008 publishing plans by allowing them to vote on which two pilot issues receive their own series.

Pilot Season now consists of five self-contained pilot issues starring Ripclaw, Cyblade, Velocity, The Necromancer, and The Angelus. Aphrodite IX, originally slated to be the final book in November, has been pulled from the line up by the publisher. The publisher has future plans for the property but stated it will not appear in this year's Pilot Season promotion. Fans can sign up at PilotSeason to receive regular updates and in December will be able to vote on their favorite Pilot Season property. The top two vote getters will receive their own series in 2008. Ripclaw Pilot Season #1 and Cyblade Pilot Season #1 are currently in stores.

"The decision to cancel Aphrodite IX Pilot Season was a tough one," explained Matt Hawkins, President of Top Cow, "The issue wasn't coming together in a way that would work for Pilot Season. We didn't want to risk delaying the voting process for Pilot Season or releasing a pilot issue we weren't completely happy with, so the responsible thing to do was to remove it from the promotion. Fans haven't seen the last of Aphrodite IX though."

Additional information regarding Pilot Season can be found at the official website - PilotSeason.

Pilot Season Article

Updated: As our eagle-eyed readers have spotted, we jumped the gun slightly, and went with the in-store date for Pilot Season: Angelus as gospel (no slight meant against Top Cow. The issue will actually hit stores on December 12th. Top Cow's Filip Sablik said: "I wanted to apologize to the fans for any confusion caused. We did indeed push the official voting on MySpace back to December 12th when the final Pilot Season issue - The Angelus - will debut in stores. At that time the MySpace voting page will go fully live with new content and voting." Newsarama also apologizes for any confusion, and has edited the original article to reflect the change .

Pilot Season was a 5 issue initiative where the readers – the fans themselves – could pick which characters they want most to graduated to their own series. Published by Top Cow, each issue was a one-shot featuring a character from Top Cow's library – Ripclaw, Velocity , Cyblade, The Necromancer and The Angelus. Top Cow's Editorial team hand-picked some of comics' up and coming and already A-List talent to spark the revival on these characters, mixing their creativity with these established characters to decide which two would go on to it's own series. Think American Idol, but instead of singers it's comic characters.

December 12th will see the release of the fifth and final Pilot Season issue, and then will come the time for readers to assess all five issues and see which issue deserves the shot. All of the issues are in stores, and Newsarama featured interviews with each one-shots writers… so now it's your turn. How does one rock the respective vote?

"The official voting is scheduled to begin December 12th and run through January 15th," said Filip Sablik, Top Cow's VP of Marketing and Sales. "Fans can vote by going to the official MySpace page at www.myspace.com/pilotseason and place their vote as many times as they like. If they have purchased all of the Pilot Season issues and obtained the 5 secret codes from the back of the issues, they can log into MySpace, enter the code, and their votes will count double the normal votes."

Fans will be able to vote on their favorite issue, and in February Top Cow will announce the two winners. Those top two issues' characters will receive their own individual series later in 2008. But the question is, will their creative teams from the Pilot Season be joining them?

"The teams we've chosen on the Pilot Seasonbooks are the teams we feel best represent these versions of the characters and the direction we want to take them in," said Rob Levin. " Something we've made sure to point out the whole time is that we can't leave these creators holding the phone wondering if they're going to get a new commitment from us while others are offering them work. If it's possible, these teams will carry over from the Pilot Season books to the series. In addition to making sure the series follow up on and live up to the promise of the Pilots, my biggest goal is keeping the teams intact. All the writers have told us they can make it work, but the artists remain to be seen. And I don't think we'd be opposed to a little schedule juggling in order to reunite the winning teams. It's really about giving the fans what they want."

Pilot Season began as a new initiative to revitalize some of Top Cow's characters with new visions by up and coming creators. With all five issues of Pilot Season released and the sales numbers in to Top Cow, was it successful enough to spur another round of Pilot Season?

"Absolutely," said Levin. " Filip has already mentioned some upcoming plans for Pilot Season in the future."

As you begin to formulate your decision, we thought to ask Top Cow Editor-In-Chief Rob Levin to give us some background on how Pilot Season came to be.

According to Levin, the initial idea of what would become Pilot Season started back in 2004 when Levin was a fresh-faced new employee looking into Top Cow's past. "When I started here in 2004 we launched Strykeforce (a revamp of Codename: Strykeforce, which hadn't been seen since the original series completed its run), and last year we shook the dust off of Cyberforce, which again had seen no action since issue #35 of the series ended it (outside of a Cow Quarterly teaser). Even newer books like The Magdalena and Aphrodite IX were approaching pretty long gaps in their publishing histories."

"The simplest solution seemed to be one-shots," explained Levin. "So what if a series isn't ready to go, we can always do a one-shot, keep the title fresh in the readers' minds, and ultimately it's less of a cold approach when we do the actual series again."

That idea dovetailed into another idea, which was originally going to be a Top Cow anthology series featuring "new ideas" to test the waters before a full-scale series was commissioned. Thus the idea of Pilot Season was born, as VP of Marketing & Sales Filip Sablik and President Matt Hawkins added into the voting concept to the mix. "From there we knew what we wanted to do, and needed to figure out what books would be a part of the initiative," Levin said.

Levin met with then Editor-In-Chief Renae Geerlings and tossed around characters from Top Cow's library that they had interest in reviving. The initial list was 10 characters, which was narrowed down to 8 before they began brainstorming on creators to get involved.

We made a list of writers we wanted to work with," explained Levin. "Not so much a dream list of 'can we snatch these exclusive guys up for this,' but a list of guys we wanted to do books with because they brought something new to the table. We did our level best to pair their sensibilities with characters we thought they could say the most with, and the teams started coming together."

With all the issues released, we asked Levin point-blank what was the thought process behind each issue: the character, the creative team, and what made them perfect for Pilot Season.

Ripclaw - This is the character that had the most to prove. He is considered, right or wrong, by fans to be a carbon copy of Wolverine but stuck in the Top Cow Universe. We know there's more to him than that, and just needed the right guy to bring that forward. Enter writer Jason Aaron who I decided was the next big thing before The Other Side was even finished. The fact that his next series was Scalped and had the whole Native American connection was icing on the cake. He came in, gave us his take and the outline for the Pilot issue, and we were pretty much sold. Originally the Pilot didn't take place in Japan and had some other things going on, so we asked Jason to develop one of his future ideas as the pilot. It was all about establishing the loneliness and haunted nature of the character, and the Japan story with Boss Yamamoto just seemed to work. Even though Wolverine goes to Japan and messes with ninjas all the time, this book shows a far different character than that one.

Most of the penciler teams were set pretty far in advance, but there was one hiccup. I got a call the day before we were going to press on Previews for Ripclaw, our launch book, and the artist we had originally talked to said he had to drop out due to a change in his other commitments. We scrambled at the last minute and found out Jorge Lucas was available. I couldn't have been happier with what he did, and I probably would have gone to him sooner, but I figured he was busy working on some secret Marvel project. He stepped up, added insane detail to every page, and was a blast to work with. Plus, Tony Moore had already drawn his great cover, so we knew this project was going to be something special.

Cyblade - Writer Joshua Hale Fialkov and I had been talking for a little while, him bugging me about "not passing on the next big thing," me responding with, "I'm sorry, sir, I have no idea who this is." I knew what Joshua was good at, and I knew he had a really strong voice. I gave him the choice of a couple different characters (keep in mind were developing these all at once, not in order of how they were released. Only Ripclaw was set as the launch title), and he gravitated toward Cyblade. He turned in a kickass, action-packed pitch that was full of a lot of time jumping and espionage.

When it came time to talk about art, we knew we needed someone (along with colors) who could convey two similar but different looks for Dom, and be able to draw a ton of little panels without losing the action. Rick Mays has long been on my radar despite his style being a little more manga-influenced than is traditional here at Top Cow, and it seemed like a match made in heaven. Oddly, I think Joe Casey might have thrown his name out for Velocity at one point, so I hope Joe isn't upset that we stole one of his suggestions for another book. Rick did a little research on the character and read the script, said he had some work that might conflict and wanted to mull. He came back over a weekend, told us the character had grown on him, and that he was definitely in. We added Guru-eFx as the colorist on the book, as they had done some great work with Rick in the past, and they knocked it out of the park.

Velocity - Joe Casey. What else can you say. Talented, prolific, and local. I actually went to his Wizard School on writing super hero comics in Long Beach a couple years back because I genuinely like what the guy has to say, in books and out. He and Top Cow President Matt Hawkins have been friends for a while, and we were looking to do some work with him. We gave him a list of a couple characters (and actually I think we were angling for him to give his spin on The Angelus who had never been represented all that strongly), and he was all over Velocity. He wanted to do pop super heroics - what else can you do with a girl who has white skin, orange hair, and a lightning bolt tattoo. He turned in his pitch, did what he does best, and away we went.

I think on art, this was the one that could have gone the most different ways. As seen by the many different artists who have tackled the Flash, speed is important to convey, but what happens in between the motion blurs is even more so. I think Kevin Maguire was always the #1 choice if we could get him, but I had some trouble getting in touch with Kevin. Then I got a phone call while setting up our booth at Wizard World LA last year, and it was Kevin. He said he was interested, had a couple questions, and then agreed to do it on the spot. Check, and mate. Along with Blond on colors, it really is pure balls to the wall unapologetic super hero fun, as only these guys could deliver.

The Necromancer - This one was not initially part of the early discussions because Renae and I were looking a little further back in the catalogue. Matt Hawkins is a big fan of the book as he created it and we were all sad to see it succumb to low sales and have its run shortened. When we decided to add it, it was a short e-mail to Joshua Ortega that we were thinking about doing it, and I'm pretty sure he responded with "Yes, I'm in," before I had even hit send. Joshua is a co-creator, and we had no intention of going outside the team to find the man to helm the book.

Art wise we had already discussed Necromancer's future a number of times, and Francis Manapul (the third creator and original penciler) had hand-picked Jonboy Meyers as his successor. Francis was even nice enough to squeeze in a cover before he got underway on his DC commitments. Jonboy came in, was really enthusiastic, and just picked up the ball and ran with it. We knew he was going to do his own thing, not copy Francis, and it turned out really well. We also brought back original colorist Brian Buccellato to add his magic touch to the whole thing.

The Angelus - This was probably the hardest book to figure out where to go with it. The Angelus as a solo character had never been a viable solo character. I don't meant that in the sense that she had only appeared in other people's books, but I mean that her treatment was such that there wasn't much there. She was little more than a dogmatic zealot who would destroy The Darkness at all costs and was constantly defeated. So, what do we do with her? I had no idea, to be quite frank. I had an idea for what to do with her warriors, but not the main character. As the other creators hadn't really shown any interest in her, we went back down our list. There sat writer Ian Edginton, the man with the mad brain. I mean mad in a good way, as Ian's ideas are some of the best in the industry. If you're not checking out his stuff with D'Israeli, you are really missing out.

The task was simple. Make this character a character. Ian asked where the character was currently (disembodied but appearing in First Born), and what restrictions he had. I let Ian and First Born architect Ron Marz talk about where the Angelus would be after the crossover, and Ian said, "I can work with that." He came back with a pitch that I read and loved, then I read it again. I still loved it, but I wasn't sure it was really a book about the Angelus. I mean, it was so different and human and chock full of cool stuff. And that's the reaction that let me know we were all set.

Because Stjepan Sejic had redefined her look for First Born, and was going to be the one drawing her all summer, we asked Ian if he had any better ideas for art. Then we told him we were just joking, and that Stjepan would draw the book. I think enough has been said about him already, but I'll reiterate - the guy is good. Damn good.

And finally, the book that almost was. Originally announced as part of the Pilot Season program, Aphrodite IX was pulled from the program midway through with no real reason given. Until now.

Aphrodite IX - Or, as the kids are calling it these days, the book that wasn't. Aphrodite IX was one of those books that came up in my initial pre-Pilot Season conversations with Matt. It's been on and off the schedule for a while, and through a number of takes. There has been some movement behind the scenes on a new story for her in terms of some ancillary media development, and one of the key guys on that end was Dan Jevons.

We brought Dan in, and he had never written a comic, so the first move was to really let him familiarize himself with the medium. I gave him a lot of scripts and a lot of time for the first draft. We blew past out deadlines and were already working in the hole. Dan has a full-time job, and he didn't want to do this the wrong way, so we decided to make it the final Pilot Season book and allow ourselves the time we needed. We went through several drafts of the script, but ultimately it just wasn't working. We all liked the bigger story we had, but trying to cram it into 22 pages and have that in and of itself be a satisfying read just wasn't working. I think it could have gotten there eventually, but we didn't have the time. Eric Basaldua was standing by to draw it, and we couldn't get the book to where we were happy enough that it was something we could stand behind 100%.

Rather than make excuses later about putting out a book that only gave readers 90%, we made the decision to yank the book from the lineup. At the end of the day, we said Pilot Season was all about putting out books we were all thrilled with so that no matter what the fans chose, it was good. Aphrodite IX wasn't going to be bad, but we knew it wasn't going to be great either, not without more time and probably not in this format.

So there you have it, the origins of Pilot Season . Remember, voting begins December 12th at www.myspace.com/pilotseason. The polls close on January 15th – so vote hard and vote often!

Source: Newsarama