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07-13-2006, 04:21 PM
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 #1 |
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Formerly Joey_numbers
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Houston, Texas
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Denys Cowan: Senior VP of Animation at BET (Black Pather Show from Marvel?)
Quote:
Many people were surprised when Reggie Hudlin took over as President of Entertainment for the Black Entertainment Television. But comic fans were noticeably shocked when it was announced that comic book artist Denys Cowan was named as the Senior Vice President of Animation at BET. Largely speaking, fans never really expected that a man who once famously drew The Question, Batman and Spider-Man would ever take a "suit" job. But then again, we had an inkling of Cowan's ambitions when he helped found Milestone Media, which was published through DC Comics. From comics, Cowan first dipped into animation when he did character designs for Bébé's Kids and later he produced Static Shock and The Boondocks. We had a chance to talk with Cowan as he prepared for a big BET animation panel at San Diego Comic-Con.
Newsarama: Let's start by timelining things - how long have you been at the new job?
Denys Cowan: I've been here since January 4th of this year.
NRAMA: What does the job of Senior Vice President of Animation entail?
DC: I'm involved with all animation for BET. I'm in charge of all development, all production for animated series and animated shorts. In charge of all animation online and all multiplatforms.
NRAMA: What animation has BET been doing since you've been there?
DC: What we've been doing right now is a lot of acquisitions of different properties. We've commissioned a lot of shorts. We're developing at present time seven series and we're also doing direct to DVD movies and also planning theatrical releases.
NRAMA: Are any of the cartoons that you guys are working on by people that we know?
DC: Some of them are by people that your audience at Newsarama would know. A lot of them are people who aren't as well known but are very talented and haven't really had a chance to get their stuff shown.
NRAMA: Any names you can give me?
DC: I'm working with some old friends and partners. Dwayne McDuffie is involved in a couple of things that we're doing.
NRAMA: Are you drawing anything nowadays?
DC: I'm working on a project with [DC editor] Mike Carlin. I've made him suffer for months now. It is so late. But basically it's for Batman Confidential. It's a four issue story arc which is the origin of the Joker. I kiddingly call it Joker: Year One. It is really the origin of Joker and it is written by a writer named Michael Green who is a television writer out here in Los Angeles.
NRAMA: Is it taking anything from The Killing Joke?
DC: It really isn't. It's really about who was the Joker before he became the guy with the green hair and the white skin. What kind of person was he? What turned him into that? How did he and Batman really meet? The whole series is insane and really one of the best things I've ever read and certainly one of the best things I've ever had the pleasure of working on.
NRAMA: Who's inking that?
DC: We don't know. I'm old school; I'd like Tom Palmer or Klaus Janson to ink it. Tom inked me on Steel for about a year and I loved it. I don't know if I appreciated it as much as I should have. So I promised myself if I ever got the opportunity to work with Tom Palmer I would thank him from page one until the end of the series.
NRAMA: This is a return for you after all, your last comic work was…er…what is the last thing you drew?
DC: The last thing I drew was a series I'm very proud of called Fight for Tomorrow which Brian Wood wrote and Kent Williams inked. It was this story of this kid that grew up in fight camps in Asia where kids are taken at a very young age and raised to be fighters. His girlfriend in the camp gets kidnapped and taken to New York. So he leaves the camp to try to find her. By this time he's like 18 years old. He comes to New York but he doesn't have any marketable skills except that he can fight like hell. He gets into all these underground fighting matches and in the meantime he's trying to track down the love of his life. Then chaos ensues because of his hunt. A lot of it takes place in Chinatown and I got a chance to do a lot of martial arts choreography. It came out a few years ago but I don't think a lot of people knew about it.
NRAMA: Moving over to your current job, was it Reggie that brought you into BET?
DC: Reggie offered me the job. He really wanted to bring me to run animation and work with him developing the new look for the network. I was very happy to work with Reggie.
NRAMA: How long have you known Reggie?
DC: I've known Reggie since he directed Bébé's Kids [released in 1992]. He came to my studio in New York and wanted me to do the designs on Bébé's Kids when it was just a concept. I did and then we just started hanging out.
NRAMA: What did you end up doing on Bébé's Kids?
DC: Major designs. Bruce Smith is an excellent artist who ended up directing and doing the final designs. But they were based, more or less, on some of the stuff that I had done. I designed all the characters like the little kids. There was this little baby character with a Tone Loc voice who **** in his pants and has flies buzzing around him, that was all me. Also a little bug character with a baseball bat and hood was all me. It was a lot of fun.
NRAMA: How long have you and Reggie been talking about you taking on the job?
DC: Not that long. Reggie had just been on the job six months when he offered the job to me. It wasn't a long, drawn out discussion.
NRAMA: I know you had been producing some cartoons.
DC: Right - I was a director on Static Shock for the first two seasons and a producer on Static Shock for the last two seasons.
NRAMA: Was Static Shock your first decision-making animation job?
DC: It wasn't my first production job in animation but it was certainly my first leadership position in animation as director and then a producer. I had a lot of good people like Alan Burnett, who was really instrumental as a mentor to me. There's a guy named Ron Myrick who's a producer on Loonatics Unleashed. He was a really great teacher to me. I worked with a guy named Swinton Scott. He was the co-producer on Static and I learned so much from him. I had a lot of people working with me to prepare me to be a producer.
After Static Shock, I was the producer on the first season of The Boondocks.
NRAMA: Right, which I'm not supposed to ask about.
DC: You know you want to ask me about it.
NRAMA: I do.
DC: What do you want to ask me about it?
NRAMA: Why aren't I allowed to ask you about it?
DC: I guess I just don't want to talk about it. Let's put it this way, it was a great experience to have. I'm happy that the show is doing really well. It deserves to do well and there are a lot of really talented great people working on there. That I will say about the show.
NRAMA: [laughs] Was it a person or a corporation that made you not want to talk about the show?
DC: I've moved on. I'm doing different things now. I'm the head of animation for BET. That's what I'm about these days. That was a job I had and I'm glad I had it and I'm glad I did it but it is time to just move on and not dwell in the past.
NRAMA: Since your job is suit job, with real hours and an office, what made you want to take it?
DC: It is a suit job and it's a corporate position with all the pressures that being in this kind of position has. It's not physically hard but there's a certain amount of expectation and a big responsibility at BET to do different kinds of shows that audiences love. You have to keep it fresh and exciting.
NRAMA: Before you took over animation, what kind of animation had BET been doing?
DC: Not much. They had been doing some interstitials. One was Ceta, which is a CGI animated girl who would introduce videos and they may have had one or two other things, but animation never had a big presence on BET. It will have a much bigger presence now.
NRAMA: BET has always been very popular, why the push for this now?
DC: BET has always been something that people watched in mega numbers that's why Viacom bought BET from Robert Johnson. We had a very successful network but the BET higher ups realized that if you wanted to keep it fresh you always need new ideas and new blood for talent. We wanted to get into more original programming and the best person to head that up was Reggie. He came in and we started a lot more original programming, of which animation is a part. With that original programming, our ratings have gotten much higher ratings.
NRAMA: How is BET animation going to differ from what MTV did in the mid '90s or is it going to mirror that?
DC: Well if we have the success that MTV had with their animation, I would be very happy. They certainly used animation to brand their network and to reach out to their viewership. I don't know how much we will mirror what they did, but we would love for our animation to do for us what it did for them.
NRAMA: Will these BET cartoons be urban African-American type cartoons?
DC: We want BET to be the destination for African-American consumers and consumers of African-American culture. Not only black people watch BET, it is for all people who are consumers of what we do. That being said, what we do is black entertainment. So our animation is going to reflect that. Any creator who comes in with a strong concept is certainly welcome. Our main focus and thrust is on animation from an African-American perspective.
NRAMA: Warner Bros has at least three animation channels. How much does that put a cap on the possibility of any Milestone characters coming to BET animation?
DC: In San Diego we're going to make a major announcement about one of the Milestone characters. I started Milestone and I remain very attached to all those characters and all the things that we did. Milestone characters will have a place on BET network.
NRAMA: Are you talking about Milestone characters besides Static?
DC: Yes, besides Static. It is very exciting. We have an opportunity to do all those things we wouldn't normally have a chance to do on Kids WB or even Cartoon Network so we're taking advantage of that. The only way we're going to really make a difference is being true to who we are and what we do here.
NRAMA: What kind of animation is BET doing?
DC: All kinds. The method of animation is just a tool. So Flash, CGI and all those things are just different methods to tell a story. I'm not really restricting us on what kind of animation we're going to do. But you'll be surprised because there's going to be a lot of different stuff that's going to come out.
NRAMA: Are you going to be writing, producing or directing?
DC: I'm always available for any designs, any directing, and any producing. I will do whatever it takes to get these shows to be the best shows that they can be. But the real key to building great shows is working with great people. We have wonderful relationships that we're establishing here at BET and BET Animation and with these relationships we'll be able to do the best animation. We're going to do some crazy, great animation on our network.
NRAMA: What character would Marvel have to offer to let you draw for you to work with them again?
DC: I would draw the Black Panther with Reggie Hudlin writing in a second. I'm extremely jealous of my friend John Romita Jr. for doing the first story arc. The current artist that they have is wonderful and I'm jealous of him. I just want my shot at the Black Panther again.
NRAMA: What about Deathlok?
DC: I wouldn't mind Deathlok either. But the last time I looked, which was like three years ago. They changed Deathlok into this strange thing. I don't even know what's going on with it.
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http://www.newsarama.com/general/Cowan/DenysInt.html |
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07-14-2006, 12:28 AM
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 #2 |
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Roll with it
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ontario, Canada
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this would truly be wicked.
imagine if they somehow could tie it in with what was going on with the civil war now.
__________________
Don't worry, be happy. 
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07-14-2006, 12:29 AM
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#3 |
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Formerly Joey_numbers
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Houston, Texas
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it'd never happen but i'm pretty sure they'd get the Stom/ Black Panther wedding.
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07-14-2006, 12:32 AM
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#5 |
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Formerly Joey_numbers
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Houston, Texas
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coco needs to be red cookied.
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