NEWS: Top Cow Announces Winners of 2008 Pilot Season!

Fans vote for TWILIGHT GUARDIAN and GENIUS to get their own series!

Top Cow Productions, Inc. announced today that the winners of the 2008 Pilot Season campaign are Twilight Guardian by writer Troy Hickman and artist Reza and Genius by writers Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman and artist Afua Richardson.

For over a month, fans went to the Top Cow website, the Pilot Season website or other sites once per day, every day, to vote for their favorite 2008 Pilot Season one-shots. Pilot Season is an annual initiative Top Cow began in 2007 that borrows its concept from the television industry: Six “pilots” are submitted for consideration to be “picked up for a season,” except instead of TV executives deciding their fates, it’s the fans! 2007’s top two vote getters, Cyblade and Velocity, will debut with new series later this year. 2008’s winners will debut with new series in 2009.

Twilight Guardian and Genius beat out Urban Myths by Jay Faerber and Jorge Molina, The Core by Jonathan Hickman and Kenneth Rocafort, Alibi by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Jeremy Haun and Lady Pendragon by Matt Hawkins and Eru.

Twilight Guardian is about an average woman with a particular kind of OCD that drives her to patrol a nine-block area in her neighborhood every night, and about the other “night people” and situations she encounters because of it. Genius asks the question, “Alexander, Hannibal, Napoleon, Patton. What if the greatest military mind of OUR generation was a 17-year-old girl who grew up on the tough streets of an urban war zone?” Both books resonated with a majority of the voters and their creators are ecstatic, excited and even surprised.

“Holey crullers! I really don’t know WHAT to say,” said Troy Hickman. “I feel like I did once at a convention years ago when I somehow wound up on an elevator with Mr. Curt Swan, and I remember thinking, ‘Something’s gone terribly wrong. They’ve accidentally let me on the IMPORTANT elevator!’ The creative teams on the other Pilot Season comics are just terrific, some of the most talented people working in this, or any, medium, and I feel so proud to even be included in this competition. And big congrats to Genius for winning the other spot!”

“I’m shocked, really,” said Adam Freeman. “Genius is not a traditional comic and I suppose that is one of its greatest assets as well as its biggest obstacle. We weren’t sure how readers would react but we knew it was a story we were passionate about. Kudos to Top Cow for being the only publisher willing to take that risk with us. Someone wiser than me once said, ‘Never underestimate your audience’ and, truth be told, we did a little on this one. We didn’t think people would ‘get it’ but apparently they did.”

“Hell, I’m just thrilled to have won something,” added Marc Bernardin. “Seriously though, it’s like Adam said: We knew Genius was an uphill battle, but every now and then, those uphill battles get WON.”

“I blew my voice squealing like a happy pig for a half hour and came up with at least five victory dances,” exclaimed Afua Richardson when she found out Genius was one of the winning titles. “I feel like I won one for all the oddballs out there—all the artists left of center, for the chicks who fight stigmas in comics, all of them!”

Now that the winners have been declared, the creative teams will work with Top Cow’s editorial department to start planning out their series, which will debut in 2009.

“Issue #1 of Genius sparked a few pretty heated debates in some circles but that was only the first act to a much larger story,” explained Freeman. “There is a lot more to tell. I am very curious how the future issues will be received because, trust me, this book is not going where you think it is.

“We’re going to dip a bit into Destiny’s back-story and the forces that combined to make her the woman she is today,” teased Bernardin. “And we’re going to show just how bloody revolution can be.”

“I look forward to a) seeing what happens next; b) getting the chance to work with Marc and Adam again; and c) really getting a chance to show my stuff,” asserted Richardson. “I just really want put my best foot forward on this.”

“Well, now comes the fun part: making comic books,” conveyed Hickman. “Let’s see if we can take Twilight Guardian where comics haven’t gone before. I don’t want to give anything away, but I promise you there will be comedy, and drama, and plenty of the unexpected. Maybe she’s a Skrull”

“Everyone here at Top Cow wants to wish a hearty congratulations to the teams on Twilight Guardian and Genius for a hard-won victory in this year’s Pilot Season,” proclaimed Top Cow Publisher Filip Sablik. “It was an incredibly close race across the board and these two teams campaigned hard for the fans’ votes. The fans have spoken and we’ve already got the wheels in motion to give them more of what they want!”

-Ed: Check our own review of Genius #1

Pilot Season: Genius #1 – Review

By Marc Bernardin, Adam Freeman, (Writers) and Afua Richardson (Art)

Genius, part of Top Cow’s “Pilot Season,” tells the story of two people on different sides of a brewing war. On one side is the next great military mind that just so happens to belong to a young minority woman. She has been organizing and training gangs in her neighborhood in order to start a war against the United States that, if successful, would establish the neighborhood as truly her own. On the other side is an ex-sharpshooter who is now a detective for the city police. He has just pieced together years of data to conclude that battle lines have been drawn without them having any knowledge of it. He knows a war is coming, must convince the department of the threat, and find out who exactly is Suspect Zero, the mastermind behind the plan. Simply put, this is quite a compelling set up.

I have to say that I am incredibly impressed with this debut of Genius and will be quite disappointed if this story isn’t given a chance to be told. As is customary for the “Pilot Season,” there is the unfortunate uncertainty about the books that debut and it would honestly be a shame to see this excellent set up go to waste. The concept, writing, and artwork come together extremely well and, while it has a few shortcomings, I couldn’t ask for a whole lot more from a brand new (potential) series than this.

The writing in Genius does an excellent job setting the stage for the upcoming war and introducing the reader to the key players. Destiny/Suspect Zero and Reggie are great characters to base the conflict around, mostly because they compliment each other well even though they never share a scene together as a result of them being on opposite sides of the conflict. While it would have been nice to get a little bit more inside the mind of each of the characters, enough is established to keep the story moving at a fairly quick pace. If I have any major complaints about the writing it’s that all the supporting characters come across as stereotypes. The neighborhood seems to be filled with racial stereotypes, because of both the artwork and the writing, and Reggie’s boss comes across as a gruff cop cliché in almost every way. While it didn’t really detract from the story at hand, some may find some of the characterization a bit offensive. Other than that, the writers did a great job building a foundation to work with.

The artwork in Genius is quite the treat. It is stylized, but gritty and has a very distinct look to it. The colors are vibrant, the action is brutal yet realistic, and the characters feel alive. Afua Richardson’s style is perfectly suited for this type of a book and it really feels like she truly made it her own. Certain touches, like the way she shows Destiny’s thought process, are simple, yet effective and impressive. If there is a downside, it is that she focuses more on the characters involved in the action as opposed to the action itself and it creates confusion from time to time.

I sincerely hope that Genius gets a chance to continue. The stage is set for what could be an epic story and I really want to know more about the central characters. If you spot this one at the comic shop, pick it up. It is a unique, mature story that will probably hook you like it did me. (Grade: B+)

-Kyle Posluszny