Conversations with the KR comic creators
Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 4:21 pm
I went to "Stan Lee's Comikaze" at the Los Angeles Convention Center yesterday and had some great chats with some of the people working on the new Knight Rider digital comic from Lionforge.
I first spoke with Geoff Thorne, who is writing the comic. Let me just say this guy is REALLY excited about doing Knight Rider! He kept on saying how important it was to be respectful to the fans while trying something new. He seemed very open and candid with me: I told him up front he made fans a bit nervous with "Horse" (just spend the $1.99 and buy it if you don't know what that means!) and he laughed. He gets it. But we've hardly seen any of the story yet. I expected Issue One to be a complete origin story, but instead they are doing an 8-issue origin story arc. So we haven't seen the final KITT yet. He didn't give me any big spoilers, but he did say that characters new and old would be coming and going throughout the story.
I also met Shannon Denton who is editing the comic. I wasn't quite sure what editors do in the comic world, but he's basically helping with the overall story planning. He's working with NBC as well. I asked him about how much control NBC wanted to have over the comic, since they seemed to interfere too much with the 2008 series. Shannon comes from a TV background (he was an editor on "Chuck" for NBC) so he understands how the networks operate. He said that because they don't have millions of dollars riding on a comic that they do with a TV show, they're pretty much letting Lionforge do what they want. But they "wouldn't let KITT, say, turn into a helicopter" Shannon told me. They're doing the 8-issue origin story now, and then hopefully NBC will "renew" to do more storylines.
I genuinely liked both of them. At some point, they're going to something with the comic I'm not going to like, but then again the original series had New Edition on. The important thing is that I really got the sense that this isn't just a "job" for either of them and I think that's really important.
I first spoke with Geoff Thorne, who is writing the comic. Let me just say this guy is REALLY excited about doing Knight Rider! He kept on saying how important it was to be respectful to the fans while trying something new. He seemed very open and candid with me: I told him up front he made fans a bit nervous with "Horse" (just spend the $1.99 and buy it if you don't know what that means!) and he laughed. He gets it. But we've hardly seen any of the story yet. I expected Issue One to be a complete origin story, but instead they are doing an 8-issue origin story arc. So we haven't seen the final KITT yet. He didn't give me any big spoilers, but he did say that characters new and old would be coming and going throughout the story.
I also met Shannon Denton who is editing the comic. I wasn't quite sure what editors do in the comic world, but he's basically helping with the overall story planning. He's working with NBC as well. I asked him about how much control NBC wanted to have over the comic, since they seemed to interfere too much with the 2008 series. Shannon comes from a TV background (he was an editor on "Chuck" for NBC) so he understands how the networks operate. He said that because they don't have millions of dollars riding on a comic that they do with a TV show, they're pretty much letting Lionforge do what they want. But they "wouldn't let KITT, say, turn into a helicopter" Shannon told me. They're doing the 8-issue origin story now, and then hopefully NBC will "renew" to do more storylines.
I genuinely liked both of them. At some point, they're going to something with the comic I'm not going to like, but then again the original series had New Edition on. The important thing is that I really got the sense that this isn't just a "job" for either of them and I think that's really important.
