On ‘Welcome to Showside’ and All-Ages Comics featuring a Very Forward and Science-y Sounding Title but Trust Me the Rest is Cool & Fun

Boring stuff first. Feel free to skip this part or click an ad or whatever you people do when you scroll past the first couple lines of one of these things. Check your Facebook or Twitter. We don ‘t even need to talk about me, really. Is anyone going to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 reunion? I don ‘t know if I can make it, but there might be a LEGO set coming out soon. That ‘s pretty cool. Anyways.

My first big comic book gig was illustrating an Adventure Time miniseries, published by Boom! Studios, titled “Candy Capers”. Written by Yoku Ota and Ananth Panagariya, “Candy Capers” was a 6 issue run featuring team-ups with different characters acting as detectives on the lookout for missing main characters, Finn and Jake. Specifically, the comics focused mostly on Peppermint Butler, a very spooky peppermint with possible times to Death himself, and Cinnamon Bun, a cinnamon bun. This was the first time I was to helm 90% of the illustration in a comic series; I had previously worked on Hello Kitty and Uglydoll for Viz Media, but that was with other artists and therefore the pressure was much lower. It was still there, obviously, but I knew that there were way better artists than me on the book so, no matter what, the reader would probably be happy. After those projects ended, I was approached by Whitney Leopard, current associate editor over at Boom! Studios, so be the lead artist on Adventure Time: Candy Capers, and I fell in love.

Let me back up. I didn ‘t fall in love with Whitney, (though she is an amazing, cool person and you should definitely say hi to her if you see her walking around LA), I fell in love with all-ages comics and all-ages properties. I had always felt sort of outcast working in the realm of comics because my comic knowledge is actually pretty sparse. I didn ‘t read comics as a kid beyond those in the Sunday paper. Give me the Calvin and Hobbes, the Far Side, the Garfield, that Monday hating, lasagna lovin ‘ rascal, (by the way, why does Garfield hate Mondays, he doesn ‘t even have a job har har har ppffttt). Anyways. Yes, I didn ‘t read superhero stuff at all. My parents were, justifiably, vary of comic shops when I was a kid and large book retailers didn ‘t carry many comics at all. Compare that to now. Have you SEEN the size of the manga section in any given Barnes and Noble? It ‘s monstrous. So I was so surprised to delve into the world of these all-ages comics that attempt, and usually succeed, to branch the gap between child and adult. These were incredibly clever, hilarious, saddening, uplifting comics that surprised the heck out of me with how well presented and plotted they actually were. I was also blown away with how a comic book based on an animated series which, for years, were usually really, really bad, was just so damn good.

Cut to me buying A LOT of these all-ages books, really the first time I ‘ve actively tread into a comic shop to get the latest issue of Fionna and Cake or the huge Bone trade or whatever was popular at the time. My point here is the books were great, and I liked seeing different people of different cultures and creeds, genders and backgrounds instead of the kinda standard overly muscled and sexy men and women of the non-all-ages comic. Don ‘t get me wrong, I enjoy seeing superheroes in comics, sure, but I just couldn ‘t get through a lot of them because they just didn ‘t draw me in. It was more like buying a brand new action figure that you can ‘t wait to tear out of the package and then it ‘s like, okay, this is a sixty cent piece of plastic. That ‘s just me, though. Today we have a lot of really great superhero comics, so don ‘t fret about what I ‘m saying here. My point, here, is that I was really intrigued with these comics directed at everyone and so, as it happens, I wanted to make my own.

Most of my career, up until about a year ago, was based on my ability to make comics look, i.e. make the world and characters look like what we ‘re all familiar with. I got pretty good at it, actually and, hey, it ‘s a monthly paycheck and security. An instant fan base, really. Think about it. You automatically get adopted into the fan base that enjoys that property and you feel like a big shot…until you realize maybe 50% of that fan base may not necessarily like your art or writing as much as they just really dig on those characters. Essentially, working on licensed properties can be like glorified fan-art, which is one million percent a-okay. Fan-art is great! A lot of super huge artists and writers got popular with their fan-made drawings and writings, but (for me at least), I really wanted to have something of my own because, again to me, isn ‘t that the goal? Sure, we could work forever on someone else ‘s work but I got into the art field and comics to get the weird stuff out of my brain meat and maybe people will like it? Maybe they will hate it? Either way, after working for a while on licensed comics, I knew I was finally ready to attempt my own stories with my own characters, and Welcome to Showside happened to be the first kid.

I have a reason for bringing up Mystery Science Theater 3000 in that opening paragraph you probably skipped, (which I don ‘t blame you for). Those writers and actors poke fun at it ‘s own medium, namely film and television. The very first thing I knew I wanted to do with this all-ages comic, Welcome to Showside, was to also point out how silly and fun the story (hopefully) was, and that ‘s why you ‘ll see lots of inside jokes and comments across the tale of Kit, Moon and Belle as they battle Frank the Lesser Demon, the Shadow King and eat waffle tacos with Boo the floating squid monster and Teenomicon, a whiny magical, talking book. I wanted that to kinda of make Showside stand out a bit from the Adventure Times and the Bee and Puppycats and the like. So consider it riffing on all-ages comics. I ‘m a big fan of not taking yourself too seriously, at least when it ‘s appropriate, and I really didn ‘t want to get super bogged down with drama right off the bat. Thankfully, Welcome to Showside, did get into the drama and we ramped up the mythology as the comic progressed. I wanted to make sure there was a lot to work with there and, I ‘ve said before, it was really important (necessary, really) to make sure this was a world that other artists and writers could play with, hence why we have lots of backups in the comic written and drawn by other people than myself. Also, they ‘re just cool!

I ‘m gonna wrap this up. You ‘ve got stuff to do and the cat wants to be fed and the dog needs to be walked, I get it. We ‘re all busy, (See, I can ‘t even help but riff on my own ramblings, what is wrong with me), after all. Anywho, yeah, so I created Welcome to Showside as a fun, fast all-ages comic and animated short (check it out above when you get a minute), with the express purpose to let others partake when they wanted and encouraged people to be creative with it. We brought on other people to work on the book and flesh out the characters, the world. Samantha Glow Knapp, Fred Stresing, Meg Casey, Kate Leth, Carey Pietsch, Carolyn Nowak, Kara Love, Katy Farina, Rian Sygh, Kizzy Whitfield, S.M. Vidaurri and many, many more ALL contributed to the world of Welcome to Showside and, once again hopefully, allowed readers to enjoy the story and history of Showside, Kit and his best friends. I chose these artists and writers BECAUSE they are my friends, and that theme of friendship, I think, rings throughout the narrative. Hey, I want you to be my friend, too! If you haven ‘t, check out the comic, check out the animation! We ‘ve got some cool stuff in the works for the future, too! Maybe you ‘ll like it! Maybe you won ‘t! That ‘s also okay! Shouting! Comics! Words! WELCOME TO SHOWSIDE!

– Ian McGinty

P.S. Bill Corbett, if you read this please unblock me on Twitter.

This June 15th Z2 Comics will publish the trade paperback edition of WELCOME TO SHOWSIDE, the creator-owned debut of current ADVENTURE TIME artist Ian McGinty. Driven by widespread critical acclaim and exposure from a well received animated short, WELCOME TO SHOWSIDE was one of the most buzzed-about new independent comic books of the year; the series debuted in October 2015 as the first ever comic books series from boutique publisher Z2 Comics.