Symbiote Recap
The first is a Comic Book Resources article that was published yesterday. It doesn't really reveal anything new, but does go into detail about Spider-Island/Carnage USA and how they tie into other comics. Some interesting points from the interviews in the article are:
The "Carnage" book is like that. It was a book that had originally been set off to the side as an "Astonishing" title, but it is going to have some impact on Spider-Man's world and Venom's world as well.
Certainly in "Spider-Island" you'll see all these characters cross paths, but something like "Venom" is the perfect example of where it's Flash Thompson's story and his world. Spider-Man shows up every once in a while, but if you had no conception of who Spider-Man was, you can still read this story and jump in pretty quickly. I just finished an issue the other day where Peter Parker helps Flash with something, and if you didn't know who Spider-Man was, it would still make sense. Peter Parker is just his friend.
But that impacted tremendously both Venom's importance to "Spider-Island" and events in the "Venom" comic, which spins off in a completely new direction after "Spider-Island" is over.
With "Carnage USA," it feels as though that's one where you did the initial "Carnage" series and found you got more mileage from that book and that creative team than you initially suspected. Is this book's existence a method of ramping that interest up further or to let the creative team go wild on the concept?Wacker: Mostly B. We wanted to let them go wilder. I was stunned at the reaction to "Carnage." We just sort of did it on a lark, and it was really big for us. Zeb had a great angle for a follow-up story that's actually going to touch on something that's happening in "Venom" as well. Rick is going to reflect "Carnage USA" in his book. Truth is I just wanted to do those covers with American themes featuring Carnage. [Laughter] That was really my only goal with the book, and Clayton Crain certainly delivered.I also received a GameInformer article that goes over Anti-Venom's role in the upcoming Spider-Man: Edge of Time video game. Check it out below (click to enlarge):
I think the "Carnage" miniseries and now its follow up are going to be the kinds of Marvel mini series that you don't realize at first are as it important as they turn out to be. In the end, I just love working with Zeb and Clayton. The pages from the second book are so different from the first book. In the original book, it was mostly dark and taking place at night, but in these we open on sun-drenched vistas of Americana. You can always tell in Clayton's art that there's something going on in the background behind the figures. There's something bloodcurdling about to happen, and it's a book I'm very excited about.
[Thanks to Aaron/Anti-Carnage for the tip and pic]