Tell the truth: you love Marvel, we love Marvel… And writer Chip Kidd and artist Michael Cho love Marvel, as evidenced by the new book from Abrams ComicArts and MarvelArts, The Avengers in The Veracity Trap! The delightful throwback book is in stores now, featuring meta-narrative winks, classic pin-ups, and more monsters than you can shake a Kirby at. It’s also just another notch in the Hopecore movement that’s been building steam thanks to similar Silver Age throwbacks like Superman and Fantastic Four: First Steps.
“The silver age was a hopeful and optimistic time, with a belief in the march of progress, of equality and of faith in science,” Cho told Comic Book Club over email. “We certainly seem to be living through some tough times and could use some more optimism and unity now.”
To find out more about the creation of the book, read on!
Comic Book Club: This feels like you and Chip’s Mission Statement on the Marvel Universe… What have these comics in particular meant to you?
Michael Cho: For me, I have a real love of classic Marvel, especially the stories by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. So, I guess this book was my way of expressing the joy and sense of delight that those classic comics brought me. I see them as timeless, and they’re comics that I can pass on to my son and smile as he discovers them for the first time. They’re perfect all-ages adventure stories. So many people read “all ages” as “for kids” but it just means everyone can enjoy them.
Broad question, but with Superman and Fantastic Four: First Steps also harkening back to the Silver Age era, and your book doing the same, what do you think makes it so appealing right now?
Hmmm…I’m not sure on that one. I suppose it might be that the silver age was a hopeful and optimistic time, with a belief in the march of progress, of equality and of faith in science. We certainly seem to be living through some tough times and could use some more optimism and unity now.
Process question: Chip is known as a designer… I know every comic is a collaboration, but how does the collabo actually work with you two, specifically when it comes to the layouts and design?
Well, this book was quite organic in its creation. But parts of it were pretty straightforward – Chip wrote a script and then left it to me to do the layouts and art. We collaborated on revisions, adding scenes, rewriting the ending etc. As far as the design of the book, I left it in Chip’s obviously capable hands, but I came up with the cover layout, coming up with the image and where the title, logos and trade dress should be placed. We played with many different cover ideas which were unfeasible before arriving at that one.
Actually, there were quite a few unfeasible ideas we had throughout, such as having a pull-out 4 page spread as the ending. Chip and I also toyed with the idea of variant covers for this book – yes, variant covers for a hardcover book! Ultimately, it was his idea to have a reversible book jacket and use close-up images of the Avengers for the book jacket.
Every inch of this book is designed – if you lift up the front flap, you can see a word balloon from Loki underneath it, printed on the endpapers, which is the actual start of the story. And the endpapers are the start of a brand new Avengers adventure with them fighting the Frog Men from outer space.
On that note, in the book, Chip is pacing around your drawing board, throwing out ideas while you draw — how close is that to the actual truth?
Pure fiction, I’m afraid. Done for dramatic purposes. We did talk on the phone a lot, and lots of emails and texts at odd times (we both keep odd hours), but I couldn’t possibly draw with someone looking over my shoulder in real life. And my studio is nowhere near that big or pretty – Chip just wrote it that way so that it could accommodate a huge Marvel monster fight later in the story.
To jump into spoilers here, both you and Chip are characters in the book… What was important to capture when rendering these looks at yourselves?
Well, I should share here that, in the script, when we shift to the “real world”, Chip suggested I draw it in a different style to differentiate it from the “comic world”. His initial note said something like “oh you know, draw it Alex Ross or something” – yeah, um…sure, that’s easy…
For me, my goal was to show our personalities in the drawings. Hence why Chip is drawn well dressed and effervescent in his mannerisms, while I am the skeptic and contrarian. Chip also asked for his beard, but I nixed that since beards are finicky to depict properly, in my humble opinion.
The fun part was coming up with 12 year old versions of ourselves, later in the book. I had to extrapolate and try to come up with a haircut and wardrobe that we could have plausibly worn. I’ve never asked Chip if I got it right – which I should when we get together next.
When you’re tackling meta-fiction like this, where’s the line when it becomes too much? How hard can you push it without breaking the emotional thrust of the story?
This is more a question for Chip, as it’s his story. However, I always find that no matter how outlandish or clever the plot, a story only works if it’s grounded in the characters. And the key to this story is the emotional connection we have to the Avengers. This book is a love letter to the Marvel Age, and the comics, characters and creators that inspired me. We didn’t lose sight of that.
Last question: What was the secret commission you made for Chip at 4 am on the last day of San Diego Comic-Con one year? Come on, I won’t tell anyone else.
I’ve been asked this a few times now by friends since the book came out. And I have to tell you – it’s pure fiction. This never happened, but it’s so plausible that it makes a great joke and fools everyone.
The Avengers In The Veracity Trap! is in stores now.
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