Comics Interview: Mecha-Nation Exclusive with Victor Cook

Join the Mecha-Nation!
 

Ape Entertainment presents a new comic series about a team of young robotic heroes.

When a group of Mecha-Sapien villains called "The First Wave" attack the innocent students at Glass Lake High School, there is only one team that can stop them...but they haven't quite figured out a group name yet. Mecha-Nation follows five young high school students who find that they have amazing new abilities and can transform into a new robotic fighing force for good. This team consists of Kevin (Stealth), Susie (Fahrenheit), Zahra (Charge), Ray (Tank) and Marcus (Blast).

This brand new series is a collaboration between Victor Cook (Spectacular Spider-Man's Supervising Producer/Supervising Director), Greg Weisman (Spectacular Spider-Man's Supervising Producer/Story Editor/Writer) and Greg Guler (Phineas and Ferb Character Designer). This series also features cover art from Sean "Cheeks" Galloway (Spectacular Spider-Man's Lead Character Designer) and interior art from Antonio Campo.
 

I had a chance to talk with Victor Cook about this project:

CO: Can you give me some background on how this project came to be?

VC: Mecha-Nation started out as an animated series pitch. Greg Guler, Greg Weisman and I put together a series pitch which included a bible, a season's worth of story ideas, full color character designs and action poses and a DVD pitch reel with music, voice over and mini-action sequence.

I came up with the concept a  while ago, I was remembering that as a rebellious teen I used to think adults were mindless drones, a bunch of robots working slavishly to pay the bills. Then I thought, what if that really LITERALLY happened, that we when we reach adulthood we actually became mindless robots. What would we be in those years in between between being born human and being mechanized as an adult? Not a Robot or Android. Not a Cyborg, but something new entirely: a Mecha-Sapien (the perfect blending of man and machine, intertwined). This stage would be the teen years, still human enough to have free will, robotic enough to have fantastic powers. While it would be very cool to have amazing abilities, there would be dread realizing your humanity would be lost when you grow up. Stopping the transformation from fully completing and retaining your humanity would be fought for. When I decided to pitch it as an animated series, I asked colleagues Greg Guler and Greg Weisman to develop it with me. Greg Weisman insisted the series heroes not start as friends. Between Guler's strong designs and Weisman's masterful storytelling, we built a world with an evil plan taking place, a world being turned into a Mecha-Nation. A couple summers ago, we decided to show our animated series pitch to some investors to help us launch this as a animated web series. During that process, APE publisher David Hedgecock suggested to us putting Mecha-Nation out as a limited comic book series first. We partnered with APE and so far, we are thrilled with the results. The first issue looks great, Antonio Campo is illustrating the book and has captured the look and feel of our animation pitch. Written by Greg Weisman, expect plenty of backstory, relationships, mystery and action. Each issue will have two covers to choose from, Sean Galloway and Greg Guler are doing the covers.

CO: Did your work on Spectacular Spider-Man influence the style of this book?

VC: No. We had the character design style and overall storyline developed years before Spectacular Spider-Man. But Spidey did influence us asking Sean Galloway to draw covers for us. We enjoyed working with Sean on Spidey and wanted see his "Cheeks-ified" take on our characters for the covers.

CO: Can you give a brief overview of the characters?

VC: They are high school students: The New Kid, The Geek, The Rocker, The Art Chick, The Cheerleader. Being from different social clicks they normally wouldn't give each other the time of day, but they have in common being Mecha-Sapiens. Stealth, Blast, Tank, Charge, Fahrenheit. Each designed with a robotic function, specializing in a certain power. They have to band together to find out how to stop humanity from becoming a Mecha-Nation. But they still wont sit with each other during lunch period.

CO: What do you think has been your personal highlight of this series?

VC: There are many highlights. It's a lot of fun to create a bunch of super-beings from scratch. Collaborating with long time friends and colleagues Greg Guler and Greg Weisman.  Expanding our team with David Hedgecock, Antonio Campo and seeing the whole crew at APE share our passion for Mecha-Nation. Of course, a big highlight is seeing our idea come to life in comic book form.

The first issue of Mecha-Nation will arrive at your local comic shop on April 28, 2010.

Stay tuned to ComicsOnline for more information and exclusive interviews with the team from MECHA-NATION!