On the heels of the announcement of a new Charmed comic book series, Comic Vine decided to catch up with Zenescope's Editor-in-Chief Ralph Tedesco to ask him what we can expect to see with the all new series. We found out who will be working on the project, whether or not it will be an ongoing as well as whether or not the characters in the television series will look like the ones in the upcoming comic. Check out the full interview below!
Comic Vine: Rumor has it you recently acquired the rights to publish a 'CHARMED' comic book based on the hit television series. How did that come about? What was the process like?
Ralph Tedesco: Yes, we finally made the official announcement yesterday. To answer your question, since releasing SE7EN and FINAL DESTINATION, which we licensed through New Line Cinema a few years back, we've focused mainly on publishing original content. However those series did very well and we always wanted to do more licensed projects but only if it made sense and only if we knew we could do the title justice. CHARMED was just a no-brainer to us because it fits in our wheelhouse of beautiful and strong-willed female lead characters.
The process definitely took a little while and was in the works for well over a year.. We were discussing all the potential storylines and details with CBS for quite some time and they also needed to make sure the lead actresses were all okay with us using their likenesses. The main thing was that we all wanted to make sure this was something we were going to do right so we didn't want to rush anything.
CV: Will the characters from the television series appear in the comics? Will you model the characters in the comic after the respective actress that played them on the small screen?
RT: Yes, all the girls have agreed to their likenesses being used which is great news. It was definitely important to CBS and to us that Alyssa, Holly and Rose were all on board with the idea... I also learned that Alyssa has been posting updates about the news of the comic on Twitter which is very cool of her to do.
CV: When will you publish the series? Will it be an ongoing?
RT: We have a special Spellbook preview issue hitting stands in June. And although it will be ready beforehand, it looks like we'll wait to debut issue #1 at Comic Con International in San Diego in July.
CV: Can you reveal who the creative team for the book will be?
RT: We found a truly excellent writer named Paul Ruditis who has penned quite a number of CHARMED novels. He knows the universe inside and out and has co-written a few books with series creator Constance M. Burge. He was our first choice to do this series. Then we brought in Raven Gregory who has written numerous Zenescope titles for us to co-write and to help Paul make the jump into writing comics. Those two have really meshed extremely well. Then there's the talented Dave Hoover providing pencils for the series and Milen Parvanov will be coloring. We also have numerous wonderful cover artists including Greg Horn, Al Rio and David Seidman to name just a few.
CV: Were you a fan of the TV series?
RT: This is funny because I didn't really watch it much for the first few seasons but my girlfriend at that time was hooked so I started watching with her and then of course I got into it. Joe's (my business partner) wife and daughter are enormous fans still so he was following the series for a while. Needless to say they flipped out when he told them the the news that we were publishing the comic.
CV: Do you think that the new series will change Zenescope? What's the target audience you have in mind for the book?
RT: I don't think it will necessarily change Zenescope other than hopefully pulling more fans toward following our titles. What people sometimes don't realize is that we have a large female fan base because our Grimm Fairy Tales and Wonderland books have such strong female lead characters and we're very proud of that fact. So our hope is that Charmed will strike a nice balance of both male and female readers and we certainly want fans of the TV series who might not already be reading comics to jump on board as well.
CV: Thanks again for doing this, Ralph. I look forward to your replies! Also, are you going to be attending any conventions this year? Will you be at Wonder Con?
RT: Thanks again Sara. I had fun doing this. We won't be at Wonder Con unfortunately but we'll be at C2E2 in April, we're also doing Wizard Philly in June, of course San Diego in July, Fan Expo in August and NYCC in October.
If you liked the television series, then chances are you will enjoy the comic. Charmed hits store shelves with Issue #0 this June release and issue #1 is set to debut at Comic Con International in San Diego this July.
Full Interview Details @ Comic Vine - HERE
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