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Get ready for the ultimate Japanese/American conflux: Manga meets superhero comics! The uncanny X-Men have been transformed into dreamy shojo characters in a new graphic novel series called X-Men: Misfits (Del Rey Manga, $13).
Dave Roman, an editor for Nickelodeon Magazine, and Raina Telgemeier, the artist behind the children's book series The Baby-Sitters Club, were tapped to co-script the series. Anzu, an artist from Indonesia, was the lucky duck that got to reinvent the iconic X-Men as cute shojo moptops. The two scribes were nice enough to sit down with Shojo Beat and talk about this strange superhero manga hybrid.
Shojo Beat: How did this crazy X-Men manga project come about?
Raina Telgemeier: Tricia Narwani [the book's editor] approached me, after reading and liking my Baby-Sitters Club adaptations. She asked if I'd like to try my hand at scripting an X-Men shojo manga for a similar audience.
Dave Roman: Because Raina was so busy finishing up the BSC, she was afraid to say yes to another project. I offered to help because I knew it was too cool a gig to pass up!
SB: Do you have any insights on how Marvel and Del Rey hooked up for this X-Manga series?
RT: The editors had been toying with the idea of X-Men manga for a while, and they came to us with this challenge: What do you get when you cross the X-Men with Fruits Basket? And it was our job to come up with the answer!
SB:: Why X-Men shojo and not X-Men shonen?
DR: Considering the X-Men universe has so many great female characters and has always had a consistently devoted female readership (more so than a lot of other American superhero comics), it makes sense.
SB:: A lot of girls in the '90s grew up reading manga and X-Men. How was manga and the X-Men able to capture an entire generation of female comic book readers?
DR: I think it probably has most to do with the fact that X-Men comics had well-developed characters with full lives. You always saw them hanging out, shopping, eating, and playing basketball, in between all the super heroics. And there was always soap opera continuity and romance between a lot of the characters. With such a variety of cool male and female characters, fans could really "ship" the couples they wanted to see hook up! ["Shipping" is mostly an online phenomenon where large groups of fans start to root for one specific romantic relationship over another.] Some people ship Wolverine and Jean Grey, and other people ship her with Cyclops. There is almost no other superhero series where you can really do that! Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman have been married forever, and Spidey and Batman only ever really had one or two women in their lives. There is no "will they or won't they" drama!
RT: Whether they have super powers or not, manga is a great place to find relatable characters. This appeals to girls in America as much as it does to girls in Japan.
SB:: Wolverine won't be popping up in your series. How about any other Marvel characters outside the X universe?
RT: Nope!
DR: I think the X-Men world makes a lot more sense if mutants are the only ones with powers. That's why the movies are so effective at conveying the theme of society scorning mutants as outcasts. I never understood how in the main Marvel universe, the public at large can tell that Wolverine and the X-Men are different from Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, all of whom have similar powers and costumes!
SB:: What type of approvals process do you have to go through with Marvel? Does someone read your script for continuity issues? Does someone else evaluate Anzu's artwork to make sure the character Gambit isn't dealing from a Pokémon deck instead of his signature deck of cards?
DR: Marvel definitely had to approve everything. But their notes were very minimal and never kept us from creating the story we wanted to tell.
RT: They've been wonderful to work with, especially considering we've taken their characters and turned them completely on their heads. That's what Del Rey asked us to do, and we always wondered if everything we came up with would fly. It did!
SB:: How did Anzu come on board? And what are your thoughts on her contributions?
DR: Anzu was actually hired before Raina and I were. She previously did a book with Del Rey [The Reformed] and had done X-Men character designs before we even had our pitch approved!
We were a bit surprised at first because her art was much darker and goth-inspired than what we imagined in our heads. But it ended up being an interesting match-up. Once she read our character descriptions, we felt Anzu did an amazing job of bringing the characters to life. We were able to write the script to really play to her strengths—and we included as many splash panels and pretty boys as possible!
RT: This was the first time I've worked as a writer writing for another artist. Anzu's artistic strengths are vastly different from my own, and she can draw all kinds of things I'd never dream of drawing myself! It's liberating to write for someone else. I think at the end of the day I prefer drawing more than writing, but I'd definitely like to do something like this again in the future.
SB:: What X-Men characters are you having the most fun with? And why?
RT: I have a huge soft spot for the Blob, which is probably a really strange answer. The Blob has always been one of the bad guys in the X-Men universe, but we put him on the good team and made him a big softie. He's kind of like Chien-Po from Mulan mixed with Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender. And, of course, I'd have to say I enjoyed Kitty Pryde herself (the main character in our series). She's an interesting person with a lot of complicated emotions, which makes for good writing possibilities.
DR: I always liked Nightcrawler, and working on these books has made my appreciation for him grow even more. He's cool because he looks like a demon, but he's one of the friendliest guys you'd want to meet. It's also been fun to write for the members of our Hellfire Club because they're all so vain! They are the most powerful kids in school and they totally know it. And you can bet they make sure everyone else does, too.
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